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PLEASANT PEREGRINATION 



THROUGH THE 



PRETTIEST PARTS 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



PERFORMED BY ^ 

PEREGRINE PROLIX. iSe^ni;* 






^ Haip \io\^ro.>x rv.'cKi^v; 



Pere^rmMs.— Licetne pauca ? 
Lector.— duid dices mihi ? 
Pere^rijius.— Tamen lege. 

Old Play. 



PHILADELPHIA : 
GRIGG AND ELLIOT, 9 NORTH FOURTH ST. 



836. 




NC3 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 

BY GRIGG AND ELLIOT, 

In the office of the Clerk of the District Court of 
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



Sictrtcatton. 

To JOHN GUILLEMARD, Esquire, 

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, 

LONDON. 



I send my friend a little token, 
Three thousand miles across the sea, 
Of kindness, forty years unbroken, 
And cherished still for him by me. 

The gift I know has little value, 
Except remembrance kind to prove ; 
And if ennui should e'er assail you, 
To pleasant thoughts your mind to move. 

The scenes described, my friend did greet, 
Before the steam-boat's mighty powers, 
Had shortened English miles to feet. 
And months to days, and days to hours. 

His memory yet The Hut recalls, 
That stands on Schuylkill's western shore, 
A mile or less below the falls, 
Above the town, three miles or more. 



*^ DEDICATION. 

Together there the stream we viewed, 
The forest roamed and climbed the hill, 
Threaded the alleys of the wood, 
And heard the gurgling- of the rill. 

This little book will shew how changed, 
Those scenes are now, by human art; 
How cunning engineers have ranged, 
The land of Penn through every part ; 

Levelled the mountains, raised the valleys. 
Made straight the crooked, smoothed the rough 
Cut tunnels through the hills, and alleys 
Through the forests dense and tough. 

Nor have they spared the Allegheny, 
But overcome his towering height, 
With engines, endless ropes and many 
Inclining planes and bridges light. 

I wish my friend, that you could view 
The feats of yankee ingenuity. 
The contemplation would just suit 
Your philosophic temper to a T. 

But since I cannot have you here, 
I wish you all joy in Gower street, 
And many a pleasant day and year, 
And painless night of slumber sweet. 



PREFACE. 



-'■»»i©««M— 



We desire, friendly reader, to say a few- 
words to thee about Pennsylvania. What, 
sayst ! ou, can be said, that is worth read- 
ing, aboutj quiet, modest, unfashionable 
Pennsylvania? We answer, nevertheless 
read and see. 

Our good state still reposes under the 
shadow of the mantle of her illustrious 
founder, the virtuous and benevolent Penn. 
It is true, she is quiet, but industrious; 
modest, but virtuous; unfashionable but 
yet most worthy of imitation : and we feel 
constrained to say of her, as Pamphilus of 
old said of his Glycerium ; " Ego me amare 
banc fateor. Si id peccare est, fateor id 
quoque." 

1* 



VI 



PREFACE. 



The peaceful spirit which breathed in 
the legislation of Penn still lingers on the 
soil of Pennsylvania, survives the strife of 
party, and sheds its benign influence on all 
the public institutions of the state. Among 
other effects of this beneficent spirit may 
be considered the aera of internal improve- 
ments, which has just commenced. 

Smce 1826, Pennsylvania has expended 
in the construction of six hundred and one 
miles of canal and slack-water navigation 
and one hundred and nineteen miles of rail 
road, the sum of twenty-two millions, four 
hundred thousand dollars; and it is sup- 
posed that the amount of tolls collected on 
these works during the current year, will 
exceed one million of dollars. 

The trade on these improvements is now 
so great, that we shall soon behold the gra- 
tifying spectacle of our Legislature en- 
gaged in the good work of abolishing the 
taxes that were laid for the purpose of in- 
suring to the public creditors, the punctual 
payment of the interest on the loans they 
had made to the state. We wish our 



PREFACE. Vll 

sometime relative, now our friend, honest 
John Bull, to make a great effort to un- 
derstand, (should this little book ever 
reach his respectable eye,) that these great 
improvements and this profitable expendi- 
ture have been made solely by the demo- 
cratic state of Pennsylvania, three-fourths 
of whose Legislature are annually elected 
by the people, by ballot; more than two 
hundred thousand voters exercising their 
franchise on one day. Friend John must 
also take care not to confound in his men- 
tal vision, the image of the General Go- 
vernment, (the United States,) with that 
of the state of Pennsylvania, which within 
her own borders is sovereign in these mat- 
ters, and would not suffer the Union in any- 
wise therewith to meddle. 

We have some hope that John will read 
our book, for times are much altered since 
the wicked reviewer exclaimed, " Who 
reads an American book?" From that 
very hour, John, who under a rough and 
bulldogged surface, has at bottom a thick 
substratum of goodnatured honesty; from 



VIll PREFACE. 

that very minute I say, John began to read 
American books, aye, and to print them 
too; taking care to charge for his editions, 
four times as much as the price of the 
American; so as to make up in cost what 
they may want in matter. 

There is not much chance now of a 
yankee book escaping the British press- 
gang; they print almost every thing, even 
some, 

In quorum foliis vix sirnia nuda c*****t. 

Moreover, the editor of the London Litera- 
ry Gazette has deigned to read and recom- 
mend to his readers, a little series of Let- 
ters some time since edited by us, touching 
the Virginia Springs; for which courtesy, 
as in duty bound, we return our thanks 
and those of the author, and will now say ' 
to him; opus Incest limaiulo et politulo 
judicio tuo; we have again need of his 
favourable and discriminating judgment. 
The goodnatured reviewer in noticing 
our letter- writer's Nequid nigh Miss, sayl 
"A pun worthy of the Miseries of Human 



PREFACE. IX 

Life; and a passage rather confirmatory 
of the Trollopean remarks which, inter 
alia, have given so much offence to certain 
of the natives, though from their own 
countrymen the evil habit {spitting) is pro- 
ven to exist ; and we may exclaim with 
Shakspeare, (see his tragedy of PizarrOy 
passim /)" 

" 'Tis true, 'ti' spittiful 'ti' spittiful *tis true." 

This is a bright scintilla to burst from the 
thick air of London, and said in quite a 
pleasant way. Touching this foul matter 
of spitting, we admit, plane, absque con- 
ditione et pactione, that in some places 
south of Mason and Dixon's line, it exists 
almost as an epidemic, but in other parts 
vf the United States the cases are only 
sporadic, as in Britannia Magna herself. 
We could, if we would, tell such a tale 
about hawking, spitting, blowing of noses, 
and other agreeable tricks played in our 
presence by a decent looking cockney, as 
we were travelling with two ladies in the 
inside of a Mail Coach between Stratford 



X PREFACE. 

on Avon and Oxford, as would cause our 
transatlantic friend to make a wry face ; 
but we will not, for fear he should think us 
spiteful. 

It is a mistake to suppose that Ameri- 
cans generally, have been irritated by the 
remarks made on their peculiarities by the 
TroUopes, Hamiltons, Halls, et id genus 
omne. The literary tribe whose bristles 
have become perpendicular at these harm- 
less and sometimes useful strictures, are 
an irritabile genus, and do not represent 
truly, the feelings of Jonathan, who resem- 
bles his cousin Bull in possessing a good 
fund of fundamental honesty; and more- 
over a superstructure of shrewdness entire- 
ly his own, which teaches him sometimes 
to swallow sans f aeons a bitter pill to cure 
his own disease. 

Spitting and swearing are nearly out of 
fashion in Philadelphia, and at this mo- 
ment we cannot recall to our recollection 
more than two or three gentlemen, and 
they are in the sear and yellow leaf, who 



PREFACE. Xi 

would think of such a thing as spitting on 
the carpet of a lady's drawing room-so 
that the race is almost extinct here, like 
that which formerly asked a second time 
for soup at a dinner party. 

If the illustrious Linnaeus had visited 
America, he would perhaps have added 
another species to his genus homo, which 
he would have called homo sputans; 
for he could not properly have made it a 
variety of his homo sapiens; who, though 
he is often a homo dhputans, is never a 
homo sputans; for a sapient man never 
throws away what is necessary for his 
bodily health. 

The amiable and facetious reviewer also 
observes, that " though the little book in 
question is good for amusement, that it will 
not probably be of much use; because 
Britons will not be likely to cross the 
Atlantic to disport themselves during a 
summer at the Virginia Springs." This un- 
happy conclusion may perhaps yet be ex- 
cluded by the establishment of the pro- 



Xll PREFACE. 

posed line of steam-packets between Va- 
lentia and New York. As soon as it 
appears that the passage can be comforta- 
bly made in twelve or fourteen days, all 
Kentucky and Tennessee will rush to 
Ireland and England in such numbers, as 
perhaps to break down the incredible chain 
bridge over the straits of Menai ; and the 
brilliant and eccentric genius of these in- 
teresting people will so amaze and delight 
John Bull and his worthy family, that 
there can be little doubt, that many of them 
will return the visit ; and it may become 
the rage in London to make a trip to the 
Virginia Springs. Statesmen will come to 
find out the secret which enabled us to pay 
off a national debt, and to learn how thir- 
teen millions of sinners can live together 
in peace with a standing army of four 
thousand men ; Divines, to behold the spec- 
tacle of a flourishing orthodox Episcopal 
Church existing in primitive simplicity, 
unconnected with the state; Lawyers, to 
see how causes can be tried and judgments 



PREFACE. jfiii 



pronounced without wigs; and political 
Economists of all schools, to discover the 
cause of our rapid increase in population, 
prosperity and power. 

This last secret we will tell, en passant; 
we are entirely convinced that the rapid 
increase above mentioned, is the fruit of 
the system of Free Trade established 
among the slates composing this Confede- 
racy, by the Constitution of 1789 This 
system has been in operation for forty-six 
years, and it has covered the broad sur- 

ardMrt.'"' ^"^ "^"p'^-^p--- 

We intend to write (not edite) a few 
Letters descriptive of things in Pennsylva- 
ma. We say intend, because we have be- 

gunvvuh our title page, and are now writ- 
ing our preface; having followed the 
advice the soubrette gave to her mistress, 
comraencez par lecommenceraenl. " We 
shall not however be so commonplace as 
to finish with the end; for we mean our 
table of contents to be the conclusion, for 



XIV PREFACE. 

several reasons of convenience to our prin- 
ters and ourselves, quite unintelligible to 
the uninitiated. 

In said letters we shall describe the 
roads, rivers, canals, country, mode of 
travelling, and many other matters beheld 
with our eyes, just as they are in nature 
and in art ; we shall call a hill a hill, and not 
a mountain; ficum vocabimus ficum, asi- 
numque asinum: also the locale Q.nd the 
doings at the Bedford Springs, a very 
pleasant watering place not sufficiently 
known even to Philadelphians : the Por- 
tage Rail Road across the Allegheny 
mountain, with its tunnel and ten inclined 
planes, will also claim a portion of our 
epistolary labours; and Pittsburgh, the Bir- 
mingham of the United States, will not be 
unmentioned. 

We had many more and pleasant pre- 
fatory things to say, both to our fellow- 
natives and to our contemporaneous ances- 
tors across the water; but we fear our 
preface is growing too long, and we ven- 



PREFACE. XV 

ture to hope that our numerous readers 
are already anxious to plunge in medias 
res ; therefore we here finish our preface 
by observing, that as soon as people have 
read the letters that follow, Pennsylvania 
five per cent, stocks will rise. 



LETTERS 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



LETTER I. 



The City of Penn— Good Things— Effort to depart— 
Streets too clean — Rivers, Delaware and Schuylkill 
— Perpetual Newness — What the Houses are like — 
-Smooth Trottoirs — Rough Carriage Ways — Water 
— Iron Pipes — Fire Companies — State House Bell 
— Clock— Man in the Clock — Mode of Alarm — De- 
claration of Independence — Stumpy Steeple — Clever 
Invention — American Philosophical Society — Wistar 
Parties — Cultivation of Science and the Arts of Eat- 
ing and Drinking — Markets — Butter — Cream Cheese 
— University — Hospital — Museum — Environs — 
Monstrous Almshouse — Inhabitants — Hotels — Annu- 
itants' Paradise — Climate— Winter, Spring, Summer, 
Fall and Indian Summer — Population. 

Philadelphia, July 30, 1835. 
What a comfortable place is the city of 
Penn ! How is Philadelphia adorned with 



18 LETTERS ON 

neatness and with peace ! How do her in- 
dwellers linger ahout lier good things, and 
strangers delight in her rectangles ! Several 
months since we had determined to make a 
journey through Pennsylvania, to explore her 
beauties, and survey the works of internal 
improvement, which have been brought into 
successful operation, with the good intent of 
letting our fellow creatures know what has 
been doing, and what is done ; and where and 
how they may seek health and delight, within 
her borders. But until to-day the charms of 
this city have hung with such a wei<;ht about 
the neck of our natural inertia, as to nullify 
for a time the force of our truant disposition, 
and to retain us here two months longer than 
we intended. To day however, we made a 
mighty effort to shake off the paralysing- ef- 
fectsofsaid blandishments, and have actually 
taken passage for ourself and a companion, 
in the Pioneer line for Hollidaysburg ; and 
the omnibus is to call at 8 a. m. to-morrow to 
take us to the Rail Road. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 19 

Philadelphia is a flat, rectangular, clean, 
(almost too clean sometimes, for on Saturdays 
*' nunquam cessavit lavari, aut fricari, aut ter- 
geri, aut ornari, poliri, pingi, fingi,"*) uniform, 
well-built, brick and mortar, (except one stone 
house,) well-fed and watered, well-clad, moral, 
industrious, manufacturing, rich, sober, quiet, 
good-looking city. The Delaware washes its 
eastern and the Schuylkill its western front. 
The distance between the two rivers is one mile 
and three quarters, which space on several 
streets is nearly filled with houses. Phila- 
delphia looks new, and is new, and like Juno 
always will be new ; for the inhabitants are 
constantly pulling down and new-vamping 
their houses. The furor delendi with regard 
to old houses, is as rife in the bosoms of her 
citizens, as it was in the breast of old Cato 
with regard to Carthage. A respectable look- 
ing old house is now a rare thing, and except 
the venerable edifice of Christ Church in Sec- 
ond above Market Street, we should hardly 
know where to find one. 

* Plautus, Psenuli, Act i.,sc. 2, 1. 10. 



^0 



LETTERS ON 



The dwelling-houses in the principal streets 
are all very much alike, having much the air 
of brothers, sisters and cousins of the same 
family ; like the supernumerary figures in one 
of West's historical paintings, or like all the 
faces in all of Stothard's designs. They are 
nearly all three stories high, faced with beauti- 
ful red unpainted Philadelphia brick, and have 
water tables and steps of white marble, kept so 
painfully clean as to make one fear to set his 
foot on them. The roofs are in general of 
cedar, cypress or pine shingles ; the continued 
use of which is probably kept up (for there is 
plenty of slate,) to afford the Fire-companies 
a little wholesome exercise. 

The streets are in general fifty feet wide, 
having on each side convenient trottoirs well 
paved with brick, and a carriage way badly 
paved with large round pebbles. They are 
kept very clean, and the kennels are frequent- 
ly washed by floods of pure Schuylkill water, 
poured from the iron pipes with which all the 
streets are underlaid. This same Schuylkill 



PENNSYLVANIA. 21 

water is the cause of many comforts in the 
shape of drinking, bathing and clean linen, 
(indusia toraliaque;) and enters into the com- 
position of those delicious and persuasive 
liquids called Pepper's beer and Gray's ale 
and porter. 

This water is so pure, that our brothers of 
New York complain of its want of taste ; and 
it is as wholesome and refreshing as the 
stream of father Nilus. It is also so copious, 
that our incendiaries are scarcely ever able to 
burn more than the roof or garret of one or 
two houses in a month. The fire companiesare 
numerous, voluntary, well-organized associa- 
tions, amply furnished with engines, hose, and 
all other implements and munitions necessary 
to make successful war upon the destroying 
element ; and the members are intelligent, 
active and intrepid young men, so skilful from 
daily practice, that they will put you out three 
or four fires in a night, in less time than Wis- 
ginbottom, that veteran fireman of London, 
would have allowed them to kindle. 



22 



LETTERS ON 



The public confidence in these useful, 
prompt, energetic and faithful companies is so 
great, that no citizen is alarmed by the cry 
of fire ; for he knows that the first lap on the 
State House bell, arouses hundreds of these 
vigilant guardians of the city's safety, who 
rush to the scene of danger with one accord ; 
and with engines, axes, ladders, torches, hooks 
and hose, dash through summer's heat, or 
winter's hail and snows. 

The old State House, in whose eastern room 
the Declaration of Independence was signed, 
has on the top of it, a sort of stumpy steeple, 
which looks as if somewhat pushed in, like a 
spy glass, half shut. In this steeple is a large 
clock, which, twice as bad as Janus, presents 
four faces, which at dusk are lighted up like 
the full moon ; and as there is a man in the 
moon, so there is a man in the clock, to see 
that it does not lag behind, nor run away from 
father time ; whose whereabout, ever and 
anon, the people wish to know. This close 
observer of the time is also a distant observer 



PENNSYLVANIA. 23 

of the fires, and possesses an ingenious method 
of communicating their existence and position 
to his fellow citizens below. One tap on the 
great bell means north ; two indicate south ; 
three represent east, and four point out west ; 
and by composition these simple elements are 
made to represent also the intermediate points. 
If the fire be in the north, the man strikes 
successive blows with solemn and equal inter- 
vals, thus; tap tap tap tap; if it 

be in the south, thus ; tap tap tap tap ; 

if it be in the north east, thus ; tap 

tap tap tap tap tap tap tap ; so that 

when the thrifty and well-fed citizen is roused 
by the cry of fire at midnight, from a pleasant 
dream of heaps of gold and smoking terrapins 
and whisky punch, he uncovers one ear and 
listens calmly for the State House bell, and if 
its iron tongue tell of no scathe to him, he turns 
him on his side and sleeps again. What a 
convenient invention, which tells the firemen 
when and where to go, and the terrapin men 
when to lie snug in their comfortable nests ! 
This clever plan is supposed to have been invent- 



24 LETTERS ON 

ed by an M. A. P. S.; this, however, we think 
doubtful, for the Magellanic Premium has 
never, to our knowledge, been claimed for the 
discovery. This reminds us that the Ameri- 
can Philosophical Society is located* in Phila- 
delphia, where it possesses a spacious hall, a 
good library, and an interesting collection of 
American antiquities, gigantic fossil bones, 
and other curiosities, all of which are open to 
the inspection of intelligent and inquisitive 
travellers. 

The Society was founded by the Philoso- 
phical Franklin, and its presidential chair is 
now occupied by the learned and venerable 
Duponceau. 

There exists here a club of twenty-four 
philosophers, who give every Saturday even- 
ing very agreeable male parties ;'\ consisting 

* A new and somewhat barbarous, but exceedingly 
convenient yankeeisnn, which will probably work its 
way into good society in England, as its predecessor 
' lengthy,'' has already done. 

t Culled Wistar parties, in honour of the late illus- 
trious Caspar Wistar, M. D., Professor of Anatomy in 
the University of Pennsylvania. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 25 

of the club, twenty invited citizens and any 
strangers who may happen to be in town. 
These parties are not confined to any particu- 
lar circle ; but all men who are distinguished 
in the arts, whether fine or mechanical ; or in 
the sciences, whether natural or artificial, are 
liable to be invited. The members of the club 
are all M. A. P. S., and the parties are sup- 
posed to look with a steady eye towards the 
cultivation of science ; the other eye however 
regards with equal complacency the useful 
and ornamental arts of eating and drinking. 
The only defect in the latter department that 
we have discovered, is the banishment of ice 
cream and roman punch. 

The markets are well supplied with good 
things. The principal one is held under 
long colonnades running along the middle of 
Market street, and extending from Front to 
Eighth street; a distance of more than one 
thousand yards. The columns are of brick and 
the roofs of shingles, arched and ceiled un- 
derneath. If I were to say all they deserve 
3 



26 LETTERS ON 

of its beef, mutton and veal, there would be 
no end to the praises that^esA is heir to ; but 
the butter and cream-cheese in the spring and 
summer, are such dainties as are found in no 
other place under the welkin. They are 
produced on dairy farms and by families near 
the city, whose energies have for several 
generations been directed to this one useful 
end, and who now work with an art made 
perfect by the experience of a century. 

Here is the seat of the University of Penn- 
sylvania, which comprehends a College of the 
Arts and several preparatory schools ; and a 
College of Medicine the most celebrated of 
the United States, in the list of whose profes- 
sors are many names advantageously known 
in all civilized nations. 

The Hospital for the insane, sick and 
wounded is a well conducted institution, and 
worth a stranger's visit. Go and see also the 
Museum, the Water Works, the Navy Yard, 
and the public squares, and lots of other 
thin;j:y too tedious to write down. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



27 



The scite of the city promises very little 
for the scenery of the environs ; but unlike 
the witches in Macbeth, what is promised is 
more than kept. Take an open carriage and 
cross the Schuylkill by the Market street 
bridge, and ride up the west bank of the river 
for five or six miles, and your labour will be 
fully rewarded by a succession of lovely land- 
scapes, comprehending water, hill and dale ; 
wood, lawn and meadow ; villas, farm- 
houses and cottages, mingled in a charming 
variety. 

On the west bank of the Schuylkill opposite 
to the city, we regret to say, is an enormous 
palace, which cost many hundred thousand 
dollars, called an Almshouse, (unhappy mis- 
nomer,) which is big enough to hold all the 
paupers that loould he in the world, if there 
were no poor laws to make them. But you 
had better go and see it, and take the length 
and breadth and height of our unreason, in 
this age of light, when we ought to know 
better. 



28 LETTERS ON 

The people of Philadelphia are in general 
well-informed, well-bred, kind, hospitable and 
of good manners, very slightly tinged with 
quaker reserve ; and the tone of society is 
good, except in a small circle of exclusive 
imagines subitcB, who imitate very awkward- 
ly the exaggerations of European fashion. 
The tone of the Satanic school, which has 
somewhat infected the highest circles of 
fashion in England, has not yet crossed the 
Atlantic. 

There are many good Hotels, and extensive 
boarding houses ; and the table of the Man- 
sion House is said to be faultless. 

Taking every thing into consideration, this 
is certainly the very spot for annuitants, who 
have reached the rational age of fifty, to 
nestle in during the long remnant of their 
comfortable days. We say long remnant, 
because as a class, annuitants are the longest 
livers ; and there is an excellent company 
here, that not only grants annuities, but also 
insures lives. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 29 

The climate of Philadelphia is variable, 
and exhibits (in the shade,) all the degrees of 
temperature that are contained between the 
tenth below, and the ninetieth above zero, 
on the scale of Fahrenheit. In general, win- 
ter does not begin seriously until after Christ- 
mas, but he sometimes lingers too long in the 
lap of spring, and leaves a bridge of ice on the 
noble river Delaware until the tenth of March. 

There are generally three or four weeks 
of severe cold, during which the thermometer 
sometimes at night sinks below zero, and 
sometimes in the day does not rise to the 
point of thaw. This period is generally en- 
livened by two or three snow storms, which 
set in motion the rapid sleighs, the jingle of 
whose lively bells is heard through day and 
night. The Delaware is not frozen over 
every winter, but there is always made an 
ample supply of fine crystalline ice to last the 
citizens until the next winter. The annual 
average duration of interrupted navigation 
may be four or five weeks. In March there 
3* 



30 LETTERS ON 

is sometimes a little Scotch weather in which 
Sawney would rub his hands and tell you, here 
is a fine cauld blawey snawey rainy day. 
There is however not much such weather, 
though the March winds have been known to 
blow (as Paddy would say,) even in the first 
week of April ; after which spring begins 
with tears and smiles to coax the tardy 
vegetation into life. 

Spring is short and vegetation rapid. Sum- 
mer sprinkles a day here and there in May, 
and sets in seriously to toast people in June; 
during which month there are generally six or 
eight days whose average temperature reaches 
the altissimum of summer heat. In July the 
days are hot, but there is some relief at night; 
whilst in August the fiery day is but a pre- 
lude to a baking night ; and the whole city 
has the air of an enormous oven.* The ex- 

*The season of the Dog- Days. A witty Philadel- 
phia lady being once asked, how many Dog Days there 
are, answered that there must be a great many, for 
every dog- has his day. At that time tlie city 



PENNSYLVANIA. 31 

tremely hot weather does not continue more 
than six weeks, and so far from being a mis- 
fortune, it is a great advantage to the inhabi- 
tants ; for it makes every body that can spare 
twenty dollars, take a pleasant journey every 
year, whereby their minds are expanded, 
their manners improved, and they return with 
a double zest to the enjoyments of Philadel- 
phia, having learned, quantum est in rebus 
inane, that is, in the rebuses of other places. 
The autumn, or as the Philadelphians call 
it, the Fall, is the most delightful part of the 
year, and is sometimes eked out by the Indian 
Summer as far as Christmas. The Fall 
begins in the first half of September and 
generally lasts until the middle of November, 
when it is succeeded by the Indian Summer; 
a pleasant period of two or three weeks, in 
which the mornings, evenings and nights are 

abounded in dogs, but the Corporation has since made 
fierce war upon them, with a view perhaps of lessening 
the number of Dog Days, and improving the climate, 
hy curtailing those innocent beasts. 



32 LETTERS ON 

frosty, and the days comfortably warm and a 
little hazy. The Indians are supposed to 
have employed this period in hunting and 
laying in game for winter's use, before the 
long-knives made game of them. 

The population of Philadelphia and its sub- 
urbs exceeds 180,000 souls. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



33 



LETTER II. 

Breakfast — Nauseous Mixture — Captain Hamilton — 
Omnibus — Too punctual — Cruise about the City — 
Dutch Baker Boy — Depot — Confusion — Passengers 
and Trunks — Unilocular Car — Inclination of Noses 
— Sexes and Sizes — Red Cloak — Red Nose — Sparks 
— Danger of Combustion — Englishman — Drawn by 
Horses four milos — Switchmaster's mistake — Schuyl- 
kill Viaduct — Inclined Plane — Scenery — River — 
Island — Endless Rope — Ascension of the Plane — 
Cars like a String of Beads — Steam Tug — Departure 
— Country — Mills, Houses, Barns, Bridges, Roads, of 
Stone — Pestilent triangular cinders — Conduct of the 
Passengers — How the Infant demeaned himself — 
King of Rome — Materials, Cost and Faults of Rail 
Road — Length of Road and Time — Viaductine Man- 
traps — Engineer's Ingenuity — Collision of Cars — 
Low Roofs — Jointed Chinmeys — Smoky Ordeal — 
Remedy — Lancaster — Old appearance — Central 
Square — Court House — Good Hotel — Sleep repelling 
power of Cinders — Population, 

Ijancaster, August 1, 1836. 
We pat down to breakfast at half past seven, 



34 LETTERS ON 

and were just in medias res, compounding in 
a large wine glass that ' nauseous mixture,' 
composed of a little chloride of sodium, or 
muriate of soda, or common salt, and a soft 
boiled fresh egg, (one of Captain Hamilton's 
American horrors,) when the anticipating 
Automedon of the Omnibus,* drove to the 
door, a bad half hour earlier than the agent 
had promised, causing us to swallow our cof- 
fee furious hot with haste ; as there was no 
remedy, leaving a longing, lingering look be- 
hind at the rescued half of our breakfast, we 
stowed ourselves and baggage as quick as 
possible. 

* Perhaps the term Omnibus may be a Londonism 
for Hominibus, meaning that the moving convenience is 
intended for men ; as thus, hominibus, cockneycally 
' ominibus,' and by English contraction om'nibus, like 
Brighton for Brighthelmstone, or RedrifF, for Rother- 
hithe. If this conjecture be correct, it would be well to 
start a vehicle to be called a Mulieribus to be exclusively 
a feminine convenience ; for the fair sex is invading the 
Omnibusses in such numbers, that a weary man can 
hardly get into one, without sitting in a lady's lap. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 35 

We first drove to the corner of Eleventh 
and George streets to pick up a man, then to 
Arch and Ninth to take in a boy, then a good 
mile up Ninth to find Wood street ; but our 
Jehu not being cunning in the city topography, 
now thought of asking a dutch baker-boy, who 
was walking under a huge basket of smoking 
bread, where is Wood street? 'Dis izh Putton- 
wood zdreed,' said he under the basket, and a 
little native who was near, told the driver he 
had left Wood street far behind ; so he retra- 
ced his erring steps, and took in a man and 
woman in Wood street, and then took a turn 
into Eleventh street, where he got a great haul 
consisting of two women and two children, one 
of whom was a young gentleman who had not 
yet cast off the nether garment of the nursery. 
This was a welcome addition to our party, for 
we are superstitious, and are always glad to 
have an infant mingled in our cup, whether 
the draught be by horses, steam, wind, or 
water ; like the pearl in Cleopatra's draught. 



36 LETTERS ON 

it increases the value of the compound, and 
gives assurance of the general safety. 

Being now full, we proceeded to the Depot in 
Broad street to be transferred to a Rail Road 
Car. After a quarter of an hour of confusion, 
the passengers and their trunks being at length 
segregated, the former were packed inside 
and the latter outside. We had chosen a uni- 
locular car of oval shape with a seat running 
round the entire inside, so that the nose of 
each passenger inclined towards some point 
in a straight line drawn between the two foci 
of the ellipse. There were in the car about 
twenty good looking people of all sexes and 
sizes ; of whom one was an old woman in a 
red cloak, and one was an old gentleman in a 
red nose ; the former amused the company 
with dreadful accidents supposed to have hap- 
pened on this self-same road, and the latter 
was fully occupied in parrying from his igni- 
table proboscis the dangerous sparks emitted 
by the engine, which constantly flitted like 
fire-flies in every direction through the car. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 37 

There was a tall, good-looking, gentleman- 
like Englishman, who seemed like one that 
had dissipated three-fourths of a large patri- 
mony in liveried servants and other necessa- 
ries fashionable in old England, and who 
might have crossed the Atlantic with a 
view to nurse the remaining fourth, and to 
see the New World and its odd inhabitants ; 
and by way of gathering information and 
shortening the ride to Lancaster, he took a 
long nap. 

Two cars filled with passengers and cover- 
ed with baggage are drawn by four fine horses 
for about four miles to the foot of the inclined 
plane, which is on the western bank of the 
Schuylkill, and is approached by a spacious 
viaduct extending across the river, built of 
strong timber and covered with a roof. The 
cars had scarcely begun to move when it was 
discovered that they were on the wrong track 
in consequence of the switchmaster having 
left the switches open, and every body wished 
them applied to his own back. This error 
4 



38 LETTERS ON 

being rectified by a retrograde movement, at 
length the cars started on the right track at 
the rate of six miles an hour. 

The ride to the foot of the plane is very- 
interesting, first passing through a deep cut 
made forty years ago for a canal that was 
never finished, and then by a number of 
beautiful country seats successively arranged 
on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill ; aflbrd- 
ing occasional glimpses of the romantic river 
itself, and the lovely scenery on its western 
bank. The view from the viaduct towards 
the north is pau'icularly fine, embracing a 
long reach of the river with a beautiful island 
in the foreground, and the banks on both sides 
occasionally rising into bold hills crowned 
with romantic villas. 

At the foot of the inclined plane the horses 
were loosed from the cars ; several of which 
(the number being in the inverse proportion 
of the weight,) were tied to an endless rope, 
moved by a steam engine placed on the top 
of the plane, and presently began to mount 



PENNSYLVANIA. 39 

the acclivity with the speed of five miles an 
hour. No accident occurred, notwithstanding 
old Mrs. Redridinghood had frightened one of 
our company out of the car by a direful tale 
of broken ropes and necks and legs and arms. 
When the cars had all arrived at the top of 
the plane, some twelve or fourteen were strung 
together like beads, and fastened to the latter 
end of a steam tug, which was already wheez- 
ing, puffing and smoking, as if anxious to be 
off. All these little ceremonies consumed 
much time, and the train did not leave the 
top of the inclined plane until ten o'clock. 

The inclined plane is more than nine hun- 
dred yards in length, and has a perpendicular 
rise of about one hundred and seventy feet ; it 
occasions much delay and should be dispensed 
with, if possible. The machinery will be de- 
scribed in our letter on the Allegheny Port- 
age Rail Road. 

The country between Philadelphia and Lan- 
caster, is excelled by none in the United 
States in cultivation, fertility and beauty. It 



40 LETTERS ON 

is all occupied by a thrifty and industrious 
population, whose comfortable farm houses, 
and substantial and capacious stone barns are 
scattered in every direction. In this part of 
Pennsylvania, until the construction of the 
rail road, all the houses, mills, barns, bridges 
and roads were made of stone. Solidity was 
the peculiar characteristic of the state. The 
fashion has changed, and there is now an iron 
road and wooden bridges. 

After many stoppings to let out passengers 
and let in water, and after taking into our 
eyes many enchanting views, and millions of 
little pestilent triangular cinders, we arrived 
at Lancaster at 3 p. m. without accident or 
adventure ; the passengers demeaned them- 
selves in the most approved fashion, each after 
his own idiosyncrasy ; some talking, some 
holding their peace ; others sleeping, others 
seeming to be awake ; all being extremely 
agreeable, particularly the little infantile gen- 
tleman, who was perfectly at his ease in doing 
his little occasions, smiling the while in the 



PENNSYLVANIA. 41 

faces of the other passengers, and keeping his 
mother very busy in the proper adjustment of 
his nether garment, and reminding us of the 
royal conduct of the little king of Rome, when 
a deputation of the French senate called to 
congratulate him on the first anniversary of his 
birth, thus described in a French paper : 

" Lorsque le Senat s'adressa au Roi de Rome, dans sa 

couche, 
' Messieurs' disait il, ' vos discours me louche,' 
(Faisant son caca) cela passe de bonche en bonche." 

The Columbia Rail Road is made of the 
best materials, and has cost the state a great 
sum ; but it has some great faults. The curves 
are too numerous, and their radii generally 
too short, in^consequence of which the jour- 
ney to Columbia (eighty miles) consumes 
seven or eight hours, instead of four or five. 
The viaducts are built of wood instead of 
stone, and the engineer doubting their ability 
to bear the weight of two trains at once, has 
brought the two tracks on them so close to- 
gether, as to prevent two trains passing at the 
4* 



42 LETTEKS ON 

same time. Thus, in shunning Scylla, has he 
rushed into the jaws of Charybdis, for in seve- 
ral instances accidents have occurred from 
the collision of cars upon these insufficient 
viaducts. The roofs are so low as to prevent 
the locomotives from having chimneys of a 
sufficient height to keep the cinders out of the 
eyes of the passengers, and to prevent the 
sparks from setting fire to the cars and bag- 
gage. The chimneys of the steam-tugs are 
jointed, and in passing a viaduct the upper 
part is turned down, which allows the smoke 
to rush out at so small a height, as to en 
velope the whole train in a dense and noisome 
cloud of smoke and cinders. 

Notwithstanding these inconveniences, a 
fine day and a beautiful country made our 
day's ride very pleasant; as we soon found 
that the smoky ordeals could be passed with- 
out damage, by shutting our mouths and eyes, 
and holding our noses and tongues. 

Lancaster is an older looking city than 
Philadelphia, for the furor delendi does not 



PENNSYLVANIA. 43 

seem to have yet taken possession of its citi- 
\ zens, and they are wise enough to be satisfied 
with old houses as long as they are comfort- 
able. The houses on the skirts are of one story, 
and increase in size and stories as they ap- 
proach the central square, in the middle of 
which stands the Court House, a middle-aged 
building of brick. The sides of the square are 
composed of respectable three-story brick 
houses, one of which is Mrs. Hubley's Hotel, 
where we took up our quarters for the night, 
and found the accommodations very comforta- 
ble. It was a long time, however, before 
nature's sweet restorer took complete posses- 
sion of our eyes, on account of the vigorous 
resistance made by the tormenting little cin- 
ders, which during our fiery ride had insinua- 
ted themselves into those luminaries. 

The population of Lancaster exceeds eight 
thousand souls. 



LETTERS ON PENNSYLVANIA. 45 



LETTER III. 

The last of the cinders — ^Leave Lancaster — Columbia — 
NewBridg-e — Former Bridge washed away — Views — 
EndofRailRoad— Tolls— Profit to the State— Em- 
bark in a Canal Packet — Scenery near Marietta — 
What a Canal Packet is — Manner of getting on there- 
in — Night arrangement — Bar — Kitchen — Cook — Re- 
creations — Bridges— Possible abridgment — Speed — 
Three Tetrapods — One Dipod — Rope, how fastened 
and let loose — Harrisburgh — How the Sun set — La- 
mentation — What kind of Line there should be — 
Duncan's Island — Scenery thereabout — Bridge — 
Mode of crossing the River — The River Juniata — 
Land on the Island — Capital House — The Island — 
Beautiful ride round it — The Rivers and their opposite 
banks. 

Duncan's Island, August 3, 1835. 
'JL We awoke yesterday at the flight of night 
and in the process of ablution detected all the 
marauding little cinders in the corners of our 



46 LETTERS ON 

eyes, endeavouring to sneak off without further 
notice, as if to escape punishment for the 
damage they had done. Throwing no impe- 
diment in the way of their welcome departure, 
we left Lancaster at 5 a. m. in a Rail Road 
Car drawn by two horses, tandem ; arrived at 
Columbia in an hour and a half, and stopped 
at Mr. Donley's Red Lion Hotel, where we 
breakfasted and dined, and found the house 
comfortable and well kept. 

Columbia is twelve miles from Lancaster, 
and is situated on the eastern bank of the noble 
river Susquehanna ; it is a thriving and pretty 
town, and is rapidly increasing in business, 
population and wealth. There is an immense 
bridge here, over the Susquehanna, the super- 
structure of which, composed of massy timber, 
rests upon stone piers. This bridge is new, 
having been built within three years. The 
waters of the Susquehanna resembling the 
citizens of Philadelphia in their dislike to old 
buildings, took the liberty three years ago, to 
destroy the old bridge by means of an ice 



PENNSYLVANIA. 47 

freshet, though it was but twenty years of age 
and still in excellent preservation. The views 
from the bridge up and down the river are 
very interesting. 

Here is the western termination of the Rail 
Road, and goods from the seaboard intended 
for the great West are here transhipped into 
canal boats. Columbia contains about twenty- 
five hundred souls. 

The State does not afford the public as good 
a commodity of travelling, as the public ought 
to have for the money paid. For locomotive 
power each passenger car pays two cents per 
mile, and half a cent per mile for each pas- 
senger : for toll each passenger car pays two 
cents per mile, and one cent per mile for each 
passenger : burthen cars pay half the above 
rates. The estimated cost of working a loco- 
motive, including interest and repairs, is six- 
teen dollars per diem ; and the daily sum 
earned is twenty-eight dollars; affording a 
daily profit to the state of twelve dollars on 
each locomotive. Empty cars pay the same 



48 LETTERS ON 

toll and power-hire as full ones, which is un- 
reasonable, and unfavourable to the increase 
of business. 

At 4 p. M. we went on board the canal boat 
of the Pioneer Line, to ascend the canal, which 
follows the eastern bank of the Susquehanna. 
The pretty town of Marietta is two miles 
above Columbia, on the same side of the river. 
That part of the river lying between the two 
towns, in some points of view resembles closely 
the scenery of Harper's Ferry, and is quite 
equal to it in beauty and sublimity. | [r- si.ML^ 

A canal packet boat is a microcosm that 
contains almost as many specimens of natural 
history as the Ark of Noah. It is nearly 
eighty feet long and eleven wide ; and has a 
house built in it that extends to within six or 
seven feet of stem and stern. Thirty-six feet 
in length of said house are used as a cabin by 
day, and a dormitory by night ,• the forward 
twelve feet being nocturnally partitioned off 
by an opaque curtain, when there are more 
than four ladies on board, for their accommo- 



PENNSYLVANIA. 49 

dation. In front of said twelve feet, there is 
an apartment of six feet containing four per- 
manent berths and separated from the cabin 
by a wooden partition, with a door in it : this 
is called the ladies' dressing-room, and is 
sacred to their uses. 

At nine p. m. the steward and his satellites 
begin the work of arranging the sleeping ap- 
paratus. This consists of a wooden frame six 
feet long and twenty inches wide, with canvas 
nailed over it, a thin mattress and sheets, &;c. 
to match. The frame has two metallic points 
on one side which are inserted into corres- 
ponding holes in the side of the cabin, and its 
horizontality is preserved by little ropes de- 
scending from the ceiling fastened to its other 
side. There are three tiers of these conve- 
niences on each side, making twenty-four for 
gentlemen, and twelve for ladies, besides the 
four permanent berths in the ladies' dressing- 
room. Thenumberof berths, however, does not 
limit the number of passengers ; for a packet 

is like Milton's Pandemonium, and when it is 
5 



50 LETTERS ON 

brim full of imps, the inhabitants seem to grow 
smaller so as to afford room for more poor 
devils to come in and be stewed ; and tables 
and settees are put into a sleeping fix in the 
twinkling of a bedpost. 

Abaft the cabin is a small apartment four 
feet square, in which the steward keeps for 
sale all sorts of potables, and some sorts of eat- 
ables. Abaft that is the kitchen, in which 
there is generally an emancipated or escaped 
slave from Maryland or Virginia, of some shade 
between white and black, who performs the 
important part of cook with great effect. The 
breakfasts, dinners and suppers are good, of 
which the extremes cost twenty-five cents 
each, and the mean thirty-seven and a half. 

The passengers can recreate by walking 
about on the roof of the cabin, at the risque 
of being decapitated by the bridges which are 
passed under at short intervals of time. But 
this accident does not often happen, for the 
man at the helm is constantly on the watch 
to prevent such an unpleasant abridgment of 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



51 



the passengers, and gives notice of the ap- 
proaching danger by crying out ' bridge.' 

This machine, with all that it inherits, is 
dragged through the water at the rate of three 
miles and a half per hour by three horses, 
driven tandem by a dipod with a long whip, 
who rides the hindmost horse. The rope, 
which is about one hundred yards in length, is 
fastened to the side of the roof, at the distance 
of twenty feet from the bow, in such fashion 
that it can be loosed from the boat in a mo- 
ment by touching a spring. The horses are 
changed once in about three hours and seem 
very much jaded by their work. 

Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, is 
situated on the eastern bank of the Susque- 
hanna, twenty-eight, miles above Columbia, 
and the canal runs by the eastern side of the 
town. The scenery for the whole distance is 
very interesting, but we had the misfortune 
to miss the last eighteen miles of it, in con- 
sequence of the sun setting in the midst of our 
regrets. And here we cannot but give vent 



52 LETTERS ON 

to our lamentation, that there is not a line of 
canal packets travelling only by day ; drawn 
by five horses at the rate of five miles per 
hour ; starting at 5 a. m. and stopping at 7 
p. M. at good hotels in pleasant places ; fur- 
nishing breakfast and dinner on board. Such 
a line would draw such a concourse of pleasure- _ 
seekers as would soon fill the pockets of the 
enterprising proprietors. 

At an hour past midnight we arrived at 
Harrisburg, where the boat stopped for half 
an hour to let out and take in passengers. It 
was pitch dark, and nothing was visible but 
the lamps of an omnibus waiting on the quay 
to carry passengers to the hotels. We went 
on deck to see what we could see and to pre- 
vent our trunks from visiting the capital by 
mistake. Harrisburg contains more than forty- 
five hundred inhabitants. Tired of the night 
we retired and tried to sleep it into morning. 
At five A. M. we rose, and finding ourselves 
unrefreshed and weary with unrest and heat, 
determined to land on Duncan's Island, which 



PENNSYLVANIA. 53 

we were now approaching. The scene around 
us was a combination of the magnificence of 
nature in her grandest and wildest mood, and 
of the ingenuity of art in some of her greatest 
efforts. The canal runs along the south west- 
ern side of a mountain, in whose basement of 
rock its bed is partly cut ; and separated from 
the Susquehanna by an enormous wall of stone 
and earth, it debouches through a wide open- 
ing of solid masonry into the mighty river, 
here converted into a lake by an immense dam. 
As the boat entered the river, the horses as- 
cended to a gallery high in air, attached to the 
side of a great bridge of timber, which here 
extends its numerous and expanded arches 
across the river, and thus drew us across the 
wide expanse of water. 

Having passed the river, the boat entered 
the canal on the south-western side of Duncan's 
Island, through a superb lock of solid mason- 
ry ; the romantic river Juniata discharging 
its limpid waters into the Susquehanna close 
on the left. This meeting of the waters is an 
5* 



54 LETTERS ON 

interesting locality, and should be seen to be 
justly appreciated. 

After proceeding a furlong the boat stop- 
ped, and we landed and took up our quarters 
at Mrs. Duncan's, whose spacious mansion 
stands on the island, about one hundred yards 
from the northern bank of the canal. Tra- 
vellers find here all the good things contained 
in the category of comfort ; and may spend a 
day or two very pleasantly in rambling about 
the romantic scenery of the island and its 
vicinity ; and will be well fed by day and well 
lodged by night ; here 

ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa 



Corruget nares ; ne non et cantharus, et lanx 
Ostendat tibi te ; Hor. Epist. V. Lib. I. 

The house is large, and the chambers spa- 
cious, well aired and clean ; and the windows 
shaded by the branches of gigantic trees. 
The island is partly under culture as a farm, 
and partly covered with wood ; and the ride 
round its banks of about two miles and a half, 



PENNSYLVANIA. 55 

is very pleasant for equestrians. It is situated 
at the confluence of the Susquehanna and 
Juniata, and contains three hundred and sixty- 
acres of good land, and is said to be healthy. 
It is a plain elevated about twenty-five feet 
above the surface of the rivers, whose oppos- 
ing banks consist of high hills covered with 
forest, and afford a delightful contrast with 
the flat and cultivated island. 



w 



LETTERS ON PENNSYLVANIA. 57 



LETTER IV. 

Good Sleep — Leave the Island — Packet Delaware, Cap- 
tain Williams — Aqueduct — Scenery of the Juniata — 
Millerstown, Mexico, Mifflin, Lewistown — Beer — 
Captains, like Doctors, differ — Good Arrangement — 
The Captain's savoir faire— Possible comfort, its dimen- 
sions — Waynesburg, Hamiltonville, Huntingdon, Pe- 
tersburg, Alexandria, Williamsburg— Rain— Arrival at 
Hallidaysburg— Basin — End of Canal— HalUdaysburg 
after a week's rain— Wooden walk — Muddy intersec- 
tions — Moore's Hotel — Good table — Where a Hotel 
should be built — Youth of Town — Rapid growth — 
Site — Beginning of Rail Road — Little chamber — 
Great cleanliness — Double bed, Slc. 

Hallidayshurg, August 5, 1835. 

At Duncan's Island we had a comfortable 

and refreshing night's rest ; and at 6, a. m. 

yesterday, we embarked in the Canal Packet, 

Delaware, Captain Williams, to continue our 



58 



LETTEKS ON 



voyage to this place. The canal pursues the 
bank of the island in a north-western course 
for about a mile, and then crosses the Juniata 
over a substantial aqueduct built of timber 
and roofed in. We had now reached a most 
romantic region, having the Juniata and the 
ever-changing scenery of its bold and pic- 
turesque banks constantly in view ; now 
swelling into gentle hills, partly in culture and 
partly in woods; now rising abruptly into 
mountains, whose primeval forests seemed un- 
trod by man ; now subsiding into little plains 
and vallies occupied by villages and towns. 
In the course of the day we passed Millers- 
town, Mexico, and Mifflin, and arrived at 
Lewistown before sunset, a distance of about 
forty miles. 

All these little towns have an interestino- 
appearance, and possess various features of 
beauty, but the situation and aspect of Lewis- 
town are peculiarly charming. They are all 
rapidly increasing in wealth and population, 
inconsequence of the great amount- of busi- 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



59 



ness done on the canal ; and many new and 
handsome buildings are rapidly vspringing up 
in all of them. Levvistown contains about 
sixteen hundred inhabitants, some of whom 
make excellent beer. 

The discipline and arrangements on board 
of Captain Williams's Packet are excellent, 
and his cook, a Maryland black, is a master 
of arts in culinary matters; the remark of the 
ancient poet, is by no means to be applied to 
him ; 

Hie niger* est ; hunc tu Romane caveto. 

There is a difference in Captains; all are 
anxious to acquit themselves in the best man- 
ner ; but all do not possess the savoir /aire. 
Captain Williams possesses this knowledge, 
and makes his passengers as comfortable 
" die noctuque," as it is possible for forty- 
people to be, who are included in a moving 

* Why did the poet spell nigger with one g ? Duke 
Hildebrod was more superfluous in his orthography of 
Nigel. ' 



60 



lETTEBS ON 



parallellopipedon, whose length, breadth and 
height, are represented by 42, 11, and 6 feet. 
Consequently we passed a tolerable night, 
though there were twenty-eight in the men's 
cabin. 

We passed Waynesburgand Hamiltonville* 
during the night, and arrived at Huntingdon 
at seven this morning. In the course of 
the day we passed Petersburg, Alexandria 
and Williamsburg, and at 3 p. m., arrived at 
a shower of rain which lasted us three hours. 
At half past six, p. m., the Packet glided into 
the basin at Hallidaysburg. In this artificial 
basin, which is large and commodious, termi- 
nates that part of the Pennsylvania Canal 
which lies east of the Allegheny Mountains. 
The goods destined to the West, are taken 
from the boats and placed in Burthen Cars 
which are to carry them over the mountains, 
by means of the Allegheny Portage Rail 

* Barbarous word! ville is superfluous; ton, which 
means toun or town, is sufficient. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 61 

Road, which we shall describe, not now, but 
in a future letter. 

At Hallidaysburg, we were informed that 
the shower above-mentioned had been pour- 
ing down for a week ; whilst with us the 
weather had been delightful. So long a 
continuance of an American rain had reduced 
the village to a most unamiable condition. 
The streets were almost rivers of mud, and 
the houses seemed as if founded upon that 
yielding material. Moore's Hotel, to which 
we were bound, appeared on a slight elevation 
at the awful distance of three mortal muddy 
squares, and that catholic conveyance, vul- 
garly called an omnibus, was not in atten- 
dance ; so we had no alternative but to trust 
to the virtue of our own legs. We stepped 
upon the mud-covered quay, and picked our 
dirty way to the hither end of a walk five 
feet wide, made of boards, and intended to 
lead passengers dry shod to Moore's Hotel. 
This answered very well, until we came to 
the two cross streets, across which the walk 
6 



62 LETTERS ON 

did not extend, to allow of the passage of 
vehicles with wheels. The only mode of 
passage here, is wading ankle deep. 

All these little agremens might be effec- 
tually abolished, by building a large Hotel on 
the quay close to the basin, so that the 
packets could come to the steps of the piazza. 

Hallidaysburg has the air of a new clear- 
ing, and looks so unfinished, that one might 
suppose it to have been built within a year. 
Its site is good, rising gradually from the 
basin to a pleasant elevation. Many substan- 
tial buildings are going up, and it is evident 
that rapid increase is the destiny of the 
town. 

The Allegheny Portage Rail Road com- 
mences here, and leads by a gently rising 
grade, four miles from the foot of the moun- 
tain, whither the cars are drawn by horses. 

Moore's Hotel is a substantial and spacious 
brick building, and is as well kept as the cir- 
cumstances of the place will permit. The 
table is good, and the landlord and his people 



PENNSYLVANIA. 63 

very obliging ; but the house, though large, is 
insufficient for the company. We were the 
first to reach it from our Packet, and yet we 
found but one room vacant ; if that can be 
called room, in which there is no room : the 
little place is six feet wide and fourteen feet 
long, containing a double bed, two chairs and 
a wash stand ; but as Pat would say, its 
cleanliness is as great as its littleness, which 
is a great blessing in so little a place. The 
other chambers are larger, and there are two 
good parlours. 

The condition of the streets prevented ex- 
cursions to see the town. 



LETTERS ON PENNSYLVANIA. 65 



LETTER V. 

Breakfast — Departure — Distance — Direction — Roads 
very bad, much worse, fourth degree of comparison — 
Weather — St. Clair, alias Buckstowri — Peregrini 
Amicus — Company — Dinner Party — Apicius, Quin 
— Dinner and its variety — Synchronism — Father-in- 
law — Landlord — Load of Logs — Sir Toby Belch and 
Sir Andrew Aguecheek — Road to Bedford — To 
Springs — Approach to Springs — Lovely Valley, 
stream, forest, hills, lake, island, bridges, mill, 
delight, surprise — Federal Hill — Buildings — Draw- 
ing and Dining Room — People in them — Bubbles — 
Chambers — Piazzas — Kitchen—Billiards — Garden — 
Basin with Statue and Fountain — Constitution Hill- 
Baths — Walk — Pavilion — Idleness — Penknife ambi- 
tion. 

Bedford Springs, Aug. 7, 1835. 
At half past eight yesterday morning, after 
a good and abundant breakfast, we left Halli- 
daysburg in a small six-seat coach, and four 
6* 



66 LETTERS ON 

horses, for this place. The distance is thirty- 
four bad miles, and the direction nearly due 
south. Nature made this road very bad, and 
the last week's rain has made very bad much 
worse, so that its badness is now in the fourth 
degree, being most superlative. 

The day was cloudy, rainy, and doubtful, 
by turns ; now closing the window on one 
side, now on the other; and through this 
agreeable variety of weather, we jolted twen- 
ty-one miles in six hours, to St. Clair, com- 
monly called Buckstown ; a little village 
consisting of two taverns, a blacksmith shop 
and three or four dwellings. Our Automedon 
pulled up at the tavern whose sign displayed 
the name of P. Amich, probably a contrac- 
tion of Peregrini Amicus, for such we found 
him in reality to be ; if one may be considered 
the traveller's friend, who furnishes him with 
many good things for a reasonable considera- 
tion, as Trapbois hath it. 

Two private carriages had fallen into our 
wake, their drivers being wide awake, and 



PENNSYLVANIA. 67 

thinking that they might go through the 
ruts that we should pass in safety ; so making 
us their touchstone of the value of the road. 
Their contents swelled our dinner party to 
about a dozen, and in half an hour we sat 
down to a table that would have satisfied 
Apicius or Quin, had either of those worthies 
travelled our road. 

[t was a very fine specimen of a country 
tavern dinner, and may thus be described. 
Table cloth like snow ; chickens and ham 
excellent ; eggs boiled to a bubble, and look- 
ing as if laid for the occasion; coffee, tea, 
cream, bread and butter to match,* and to 
crown all, young and tender virgin honey in 
the comb, of a delicate straw colour ap- 
proaching white, and almost transparent ; 
cheese, and several kinds of preserves. 

It should be observed, that all these dain- 
ties synchronised on the table, giving it a 
rich, abundant, and most inviting aspect. 
The company, however, were at liberty to 
swallow them in any order, and in any 



68 LETTERS ON 

quantity that was to them convenient ; each 
person paying for his quota, thirty-seven 
cents. We had almost forgotten to mention 
a pleasant looking personage that opened the 
carriage door and welcomed us to the tavern, 
whose ventral rotundity and facial rubicun- 
dity were most competent and credible 
witnesses that good cheer awaited us within. 
We mistook this personage for the landlord, 
from the easy and agreeable, though unpre- 
tending manner m which he did the honors of 
the house. Upon addressing him in that 
style, however, he very modestly disclaimed 
the honour, informing us that his son-in-law 
held that distinction, and that he was expected 
soon to return from the wood, whither he had 
gone with the wagon to fetch a load of logs. 
When that dignitary made his appear- 
ance, he bore just such a resemblance to 
the stout gentleman, both in person and 
action, that Sir Andrew Aguecheek does to 
Sir Toby Belch, and it was evident from a 
certain " ego-et-rex-meus" air fluttering about 



PENNSYLVANIA. 69 

Sir Toby, that he was the ruler of the roast. 
But the roast was well ruled, and with such 
good nature and liberality as s-howed, that 
in Pennsylvania, as in Turkey, 

" 'Tis a very fine thing to be pet son-in-law, 
To a very rich rubicund Buckstovvn bashaw." 

Old Farce* 

This comfortable establishment, just such a 
haven as a weary traveller loves to nestle in, we 
left at 3 p. M., and found the remainder of the 
road to the town of Bedford, a distance of eleven 
miles, much better. The country improves 
in appearance as you approach that village, 
which is beautifully situated on a little plaia 
surrounded by hills of various and picturesque 
shapes. It is two miles of excellent road from 
the town to the Springs, which we reached in 
safety at 6 p. m. 

As it approaches the Springs, the road sud- 
denly descends, and like Sadak in search of 
the waters of oblivion, you plunge at once 
into a shady and sequested valley, refreshed 



70 LETTERS ON 

by a clear cool stream, and bounded by tower- 
ing forest-covered hills; whose lovely aspect 
cannot but fill you with delight and surprise. 
The stream passes under several romantic 
bridges, then expands into a little lake, 
having in its centre an enchanted island 
planted with various shrubs, then turns the 
wheel of a pretty little mill, and passing from 
the valley hastens to unite its waters with the 
greater stream of the Juniata. The ridge 
which bounds the valley on the west, is called 
Federal Hill ; at whose eastern foot stand 
the principal buildings destined to receive 
the numerous and agreeable visiters, who 
seek for health and amusement in this plea- 
sant valley, in each revolving summer. 

The preceding description will be rendered 
more accurate, by adding to it the following 
lines employed by the refined and witty Flac- 
cus, to convey to a friendly mind, a true 
picture of his own delightful retreat. 

The poet's valley opened to the east and 
west, whereas that of our Bedford stretches 



PENNSYLVANIA. 71 

from north to south, which gives it the advan- 
tage of greater variety of light and shade, 
as the fleeting hours successively fulfil the 
day. 

" Cotitinui montes ; ni dissocientur opaca 
Valle : sed ut veniens dextrutn latus aspiciat Sol, 
LEBvum discedens curru fugiente vaporet. 
Temperiem laudes. 



Si quercus et ilex 



Multa fruge pecus, multa dominum juvat umbra. 
Fons etiam rivo dare nomen idoneus, ut nee 
Frigidior Thracam nee purior ambiat Hebrus, 
Injirmo capiti fluit utilis, utilis alvo. 
Hae latebrae dulces, et (jam si credis) amcenae, 

Incolumem tibi me prsostant 

Hor. Epist. 16 Lib. I. 

Like that of the poet's villa, the temperature 
is worthy of all praise, the shade is delightful, 
the fountain might name a river cooler and 
clearer than Hebrus, and cure a headache or 
a cholic, far beyond the reach of Dr. Kiche- 
ner's persuaders. 

There are two large buildings communica- 
ting by piazzas, one being of stone and the 
other of wood, and each being one hundred 



72 LETTERS ON 

and thirty feet long, and two stories and a half 
high. In the southern building is a handsome 
drawing-room ; and a large apartment, a 
dancing room by night, a dining room by day, 
and capacious enough to accommodate two 
hundred dancers or diners. In this room may 
be seen congregated together thrice a day, 
doing honour to Mr. Brown's excellent viands, 
industriously, quietly and decorously, an inter- 
esting party of ladies and gentlemen from 
Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, con- 
sisting of governors, judges, senators and 
congressmen in esse or fuisse, and even presi- 
dents and vice-presidents in posse ; for there 
is scarce a lad of twenty in the United States 
^ho does not aspire to the presidency. 

AH these functionaries, (cum eorum uxori- 
bus filiabusque,) harmonise very pleasantly, 
and their modus vivendi much resembles that 
of the eaters and drinkers at Langenschwal- 
b^ch, so pleasantly and elegantly described by 
the author of Bubbles from the Brunnens of 
Nassau. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



73 



The story above the dining room consists 
of two rows of chambers separated by a long 
passage six feet wide. Each chamber is about 
sixteen feet long and thirteen wide, and has 
two windows ; they are furnished with bed- 
steads, bedding, tables, bureaus, chairs, &;c. 
and are kept clean and comfortable. The 
northern building, which is of stone, is entirely 
divided into sleeping rooms ; in one of which 
we are now writing this interesting epistle. 
Both buildings on their eastern front are pro- 
tected from the morning sun, by piazzas ex- 
tending from end to end, from top to bottom, 
and storied like the houses. 

At a short distance to the south-east of 
these edifices, its length being at right angles 
with theirs, stands another wooden building 
one hundred and forty feet long ; in whose 
basement the culinary operations are carried 
on ; whose ground floor is devoted to billiards, 
and its upper story to sleeping rooms. In 
front of this building is a little garden, in which 

is a large basin of water, in whose centre, on a 

7 



74 LETTEKS ON 

pyramid of rock, stands a figure of Hygiea 
holding in her hand a bowl, in which she re- 
ceives the water of a fountain perpetually 
playing above her head. 

A little beyond the garden to the east, a 
handsome bridge leads across the stream to 
Constitution Hill, a towering ridge, the boun- 
dary of the valley on the east. At the foot of 
this hill is another edifice filled with baths both 
hot and cold, which are under very good 
management. Cut in the western side of 
Constitution Hill, and leading by a zigzag 
course to its elevated summit, is a pleasant 
walk, shaded by the trees and bordered by the 
flowers of the forest. The hill is very bold in 
its ascent, but the walk is so skilfully laid 
out, as to enable strollers to attain the rural 
pavilion on the hill-top without fatigue. There 
you may sit, shut out from the world below by 
the thick foliage, and take your fill of idleness, 
musing, and looking lazily through a long 
vista at the distant hills. The walk is pleas- 
antest in the morning, before the eastern sun 



PENNSYLVANIA. 75 

has climed the hill. The benches and wooden 
columns of the pavilion have suffered much 
from the ruthless ambition of that numerous 
class of aspirants after immortality, who en- 
deavour to cut their way to the temple of 
Fame with their penknives, and inflict the 
ambitious initials of their illustrious names on 
every penetrable piece of stuff they meet. 
As a goose delights in its gosling, so does one 
of these wits in his whittling. 



LETTERS ON PENNSiTLVANIA. 77 



LETTER VI. 

Fine weather — Too short days — Bell at 7 A. m. — Rising 
and Drinking — Breakfast Bell — Fair, to eat — Fare, 
to be eaten — Abundance, of Food, Time, Place and 
Circumstance — Virginia Letters — Doings after break- 
fast — Read or Sew ; Sleep or so — Masculine and 
Feminine Amusements — Fishers of Men — Dinner — 
Mutton, Wales — Venison, Blenheim Park — Cheap 
Deer, plentiful and paradoxical — Hominy — How to 
prepare it — How to eat it — Unhappy people — After- 
noon — Occupation and Idleness — Supper — The Hour 
after — Music and preparation for Dancing — Family 
of Musicians — Epaminoudas ; his music and dancing 
— Sunday — Church sometimes iu Dining Room. 

Bedford Springs, August 10, 1835. 

The weather has been very fine, and the 

days pass so pleasantly that they seem too 

short for the time of year. If Aurora has not 

previously raised your eyelids, a bell breaks 

7* 



78 LETTERS ON 

your slumbers at 7 a. m. ; you rise and drink 
three glasses of the mineral water ; (that is 
enough ;) you dress and descend to the lower 
piazza, where half an hour's walk will con- 
spire with the water to do you service. The 
bell for breakfast rings at eight, previous to 
which event the drawing-room has been 
gradually filled with the early and hungry fair, 
who are to eat, and the table has been filled 
with the boiled and baked and broiled fare, 
that is to be eaten. The etiquette of the table 
is similar to that observed at the Virginia 
Springs, and will be found described in our 
letters on those delightful watering-places in 
pages 19 and 20; to which we refer our curious 
and intelligent readers. There is abundance 
here, not only of edibles and potables, but also 
of room and time ; circumstances which are 
extremely favourable to a full and fair discus- 
sion of the subjects that are laid before the 
company. 

After breakfast, all who are able to walk, 
may be seen sauntering over the bridge, and 



PENNSYLVANIA. 79 

wandering along the further bank of the 
stream ; and some more ambitious than the 
rest actually carrying their breakfasts to the 
top of Constitution Hill ; there to sit awhile 
and chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancy. 

In an hour or two the ladies retire to read 
or sew, perchance to sleep or so ; and when 
tired of their rooms, they tyre for dinner. 
There are some enterprising exceptions who 
take a drive in a barouche or a ride on horse- 
back. The masculine amusements are bil- 
liards, shooting, fishing and politics; the ladies 
also indulge a little in the two latter diver- 
sions ; but then they are fishers of men, and 
use their angles with success and grace. 

At two p. M. the bell again invites to the 
table well covered with flesh, fowl, fish and 
vegetables. Among the most honoured viands 
are mountain mutton and wild venison ; the 
former as good as that of Wales, and the lat- 
ter better than that of Blenheim Park ,* as it 
is very tender and has a fine wild game 
flavour. It is plentiful here, and paradoxical, 



80 LETTERS ON 

for though it is deer, yet it is cheap. Among 
the vegetable preparations, one of the most 
enticing and satisfactory is hominy ; and it 
sometimes disappears with such amazing 
velocity and voracity, that on one occasion we 
were obliged to request our friend the Presi- 
dent Judge of the district, who sat vis a vis, 
to issue a writ de homine replegiando. Hom- 
iny is made of maize or Indian corn, the grains 
of which are cracked into several pieces and 
the skin rubbed off. One-fourth of its bulk of 
a small dried bean is mixed with it, and it is 
boiled or simmered for seven or eight hours. 
It is enriched with butter and seasoned with 
salt, and served up smoking hot and white as 
snow. It is in truth a lovely and a whole- 
some compound, and very worthy to accom- 
pany a piece of roast or boiled corn-fed 
turkey and a slice of Maryland ham, down the 
hungry throat. This dainty is but little known 
to the unhappy people who dwell east of the 
river Hudson, and but few transatlantics have 
ever heard its name. It is for the benefit of 



PENNSYLVANIA. 81 

such that we have noticed it, and shall de- 
scribe every thing we see in Pennsylvania, 

" Planius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore ;" 
in order that they may understand better 
" Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non." 

The afternoon is divided between occupa- 
tion and idleness, much after the manner of 
the morning. An hour before tea the purlieus 
are again enlivened by the appearance of 
numbers of both sexes ; many of whom visit 
the principal mineral spring to imbibe a little 
of its liquid treasure. At 7 p. m. the welcome 
summons of the bell recalls the wanderers to 
the festive board, now spread for supper. 
After this last meal of the day, the company 
collect in the drawing-room, which communi- 
cates with the dining-room by a folding door. 
Here they pass a chatty hour, whilst the 
familiars are arranging the latter for a dance, 
by withdrawing the tables to the further end. 
When the metamorphosis is complete the ball- 
room is not very grand ; 



82 LETTERS ON 

' The ceiling- boasts no polymyx, 
No drapery the windows ; 
.The folks think more of polities 
Than finery within doors.' 

Kentucky Ballad. 

The musicians have no orchestra, but sit 
in chairs upon the floor, and are all members 
of one German family, consisting of a father* 
and five or six sons, who play admirably upon 
different instruments, whose first harmony 
draws the dancers to the floor ; and the more 
sedate are left to the pleasures of talk, or 
whist, or chess, in the drawing-room. By 
11 p. M. another day is added to the past, and 
every sound is hushed in sleep. 

On Sunday the occupations are different, 
for all that can find a place of worship agree- 
able to their religious views, go to church. If 

* Unhappily the name of this musical patriarch has 
escaped us, or we would have made him as immortal 
as Dionysius and Olympiodorus the music-masters of 
that grave and philosophic soldier and accomplished old 
bachelor Epaminondas, or even as the graceful Calli- 
phron the distinguished niaitre de danse of that same 
learned Theban. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 83 

it should happen that a clergyman of the Pro- 
testant Episcopal church be sojourning at 
the spring^, Sunday converts the dining room 
into a place of worship, and most of the com- 
pany are satisfied to stay at home and attend 
the solemn and edifying service of the church. 



LETTERS ON PENNSYLVANIA 85 



LETTER VII. 

Weather — Temperature — Nights fit for snoozing — 
Warm and Bright days — Height of the Valley's bot- 
tom — Rationale of Climate — Anderson's Spring — 
Position — Temperature — Taste — Smell — Flat— Clear 
—No Sediment — Doctor Church's valuable Analysis 
— Contents of Water, solid and gaseous — Fletcher's 
Spring — Differences — Powers of the Water — Diseases 
to be cured — Travelling Water — Price — Allowance 
for a Toper — Brandy, Love and Jealousy — Wine and 
Water Poets — Limestone Water — Its volume — 
Lower Level — Sulphur Spring — Its Contents — Sweet 
Springs — Coolness and Purity. 

Bedford Springs, August 13, 1835. 
The weather has been very fine since our 
arrival, and the temperature delightfijl ; the 
nights are cool and apt for snoozing, the morn- 
ings and evenings mild, and the days comfort- 
able, warm and bright. 
8 



86 



LETTERS ON 



The bottom of this valley is about one 
thousand feet higher than the site of Phila- 
delphia, which sufficiently accounts for the 
superiority of its summer climate. 

There are several springs, the most impor- 
tant of which is Anderson's; which gushes 
abundantly from a lime stone rock on the 
western side of Constitution Hill, at an eleva- 
tion of thirty feet above the rivulet, and at a 
distance of sixty feet from its eastern bank. 
The water is transparent and sparkling, and 
exhibits a temperature of fifty-eight degrees 
according to the scale of Fahrenheit, when 
the same thermometer would stand at seven- 
ty in the surrounding air. It has a slight 
saline taste, but no smell. When exposed ia 
a vessel to the air, it becomes flat, but retains 
Its clearness, and deposites no sediment. 

The stream from the spring deposites car- 
bonate of iron, on those substances it contin- 
ually flows over. 

Doctor William Church of Pittsburg, gives 



PENNSYLVANIA. 87 

the following analysis of a quart of the 
water from Anderson's spring. 

'A quart of water, evaporated to dryness, 

* gave thirty-one grains of a residuum. The 
' same quantity of water, treated agreeably 
' to the rule laid down by Westrumb, con- 

* tained eighteen and a half inches of carbonic 
' acid gas. — The residuum, treated according 
' to the rules given by Dr. Henry, in his Sys- 
' tem of Chemistry, gave the following result : 

* Sulphate of Magnesia or Epsom 

Salts, - .- - : 

' Sulphate of Lime, 

* Muriate of Soda, 
' Do. of Lime, 

* Carbonate of Iron, - 

* Do. of Lime, 

* Loss, 

31 grains. 

* To which must be added 18^ cubic inches 

* of carbonic acid gas.' 



20 grains. 


3| 


(( 


24 


(( 


1 


(C 


n 


u 


2 


» 


I 


(( 



88 LETTERS ON 

At the distance of one hundred and fifty 
yards to the south of Anderson's spring, 
another abundant spring called Fletcher's, 
flows from a limestone rock on the western 
side of Constitution Hill. 

Doctor Church's experiments on the water 
of this spring, produced nearly the same re- 
sults as above described, with respect to 
Anderson's spring; except in detecting a 
little more iron and common salt ; and a little 
less magnesia. With the surrounding air at 
seventy, the water in this spring exhibits 
fifty-five degrees of Fahrenheit. 

These waters are antacid, mildly cathartic 
and tonic, and not being nauseous, may be 
taken with comfort by the most delicate 
stomach. Experience has proved that they 
are capable of putting to flight an army of 
diseases ; and when the body personal is 
thoroughly soaked with them secundum ar- 
tem, like Pandora's patent box, it parts with 
an Ilias malorum, and hope remains behind. 

Any persons possessing any of the under- 



PENNSYLVANIA. 89 

mentioned diseases, may become the benefi- 
ciaries of these benignant waters : Diseases 
of the stomach and intestines ; dyspepsia ; 
haemorrhoids; worms ; calculus ; gravel ; ana- 
sarca ; suppression or excess of various secre- 
tions ; diabetes ; gout ; debility remaining 
after acute diseases ; and all those chronico- 
bilious affections originating in southern cli- 
mates. 

The waters have acquired so great a repu- 
tation, that immense quantities are sent away 
daily in barrels to perform long and expen- 
sive journeys by land, to go and cure those, 
"who cannot come to them. The price of a 
barrel filled, and ready booted and spurred 
for its journey is three dollars; and that is 
enough to last a regular and prudent toper 
four months. 

Visiters at the Springs grow so fond of the 
water, that Brandy, Gin, Usquebaugh, Rum, 
Champagne, and the rest of their old and 
virtuous loves, are soon routed from their 

affections, and whistled down the stream of 

8* 



^" lETTERS ON 

oblivion. It is feared that this may excite 
the jealousy of the temperance societies, as 
trenching somewhat upon their ground ; and 
that it may prevent poets from spending a 
few pleasant days at the Springs; because 
Horace says, — 

Nulla placere diu nee vivere carmina possunt, 
Quae scribunter aquas potoribus.—Epist. 19. Lib. 1, 

It is however probable that he did not mean 
Bedford water ; therefore let the Poets come, 
and resist the watery seduction if they can. 

There is also a very copious spring of lime- 
stone water issuing from several crevices in a 
rock at the western foot of Constitution Hill, 
about two hundred yards north of Anderson's 
spring, and forty feet below its level. Its 
volume is sufficient to turn an overshot mill, 
and its temperature is fifty-one. 

On the western side of the rivulet, and at a 
distance of two hundred yards from Ander- 
son's spring, rises a spring whose water ex- 
hales a strong odour of sulphuretted hydro- 



PENNSYLVANIA. 91 

gen gas, and is covered by a thin whitish 
pellicle. Doctor Church's experiments proved 
it to contain carbonic acid and sulphuretted 
hydrogen gas; and small quantities of lime, 
magnesia, and common salt. Its temperature 
is fifty-six. 

The place is also blessed with two pure 
springs, clear as light, and cool as the cave 
of Calypso. The element flowing from these 
sources is so pure that the chemical tests do 
not discolour it. The springs are situated on 
the eastern side of Federal Hill, and from 
their tasteless purity and delicious coolness, 
have obtained the name of Sweet* Their 
temperature is fifty-two. 



LETTERS ON PENNSYLVANIA. 93 



LETTER VIII. 

Departure from the Springs — Mail Coach — Exercise — 
Views — Ascent of the Allegheny — Parting of the 
Waters — Atlantic, Mississippi — Look behind— Moun- 
tain Top — Level Country — Farms — Grass, Oats, 
Buckwheat — Descent — Laurel Hill— Elevated Valley 
— Its breadth — Somerset — Its Climate — McAdam — 
Blacksmiths and Wheelwrights — Golden Swan Ta- 
vern — Customs — Table d' Hote — Boarders — Host 
and Hostess — Peace and Plenty — Silver Forks — 
Hours of Meals — Early Breakfast welcome — Good 
Intention — Rain. 

Somerset, August 14, 1835. 
At 10 A. M. yesterday, the weather being 
clear and warm, we left the Springs in a hack 
to join the Mail Coach at Bedford on its way 
to Somerset. In an hour we were snugly en- 
sconced in one of Mr. Reeside's well appoint- 
ed coaches, and rumbling over the stone turn- 



94 LETTERS ON 

pike on our way to the great west. The 
road is safe but rough, and affords good exer- 
cise and sometimes interesting views. For 
eleven miles it is not very hilly, and at that 
distance stands a little tavern, where the 
coach gets fresh horses, and the passengers a 
dinner, as necessary preparations for sur- 
mounting the Allegheny Mountain. 

The country now rises gradually from 
plateau to plateau for a distance of four- 
teen miles, when you reach the top of the 
Allegheny ; the great ridge which is the part- 
ing of the waters. The streams behind you 
flow into the Atlantic, and those before you 
into the Mississippi. On the ascent are many 
fine views, which you lose, unless you throw 
backward an occasional glance, as you rise 
from hill to higher hill beyond. On the very 
summit is a large stone tavern where the 
coach takes fresh horses. Hence for seven 
or eight miles, which may be considered as 
the mountain top, the country is nearly level, 
and consists of farms and forests inter- 



PENNSYLVANIA. 95 

mingled. The fields of grass, oats and buck- 
wheat promise to repay the farmers' labours 
with abundant crops. 

For the next six miles the country gradu- 
ally descends, by alternate declivities and 
levels, into the broad valley which lies be- 
tween the summits of the Allegheny Moun- 
tain and Laurel Hill. The distance between 
the summits is about twenty miles, and the 
general surface of the valley is not much de- 
pressed below them. Somerset stands in this 
elevated valley, and its climate is proportiona- 
bly cool. 

We reached that village at half past seven, 
p. M. having been eight hours and a half in 
travelling thirty-eight miles from Bedford. 
The road is an oldfashioned stone turnpike, 
made before McAdam had taught the nations 
how small to break their stone ; it is therefore 
hard, and rough, and safe, and jolty, and slow 
to travel ; good for health, and profitable to 
blacksmiths and wheelwrights. 

The coach set us down at the Golden 



96 LETTERS OX 

Swan, a very good house, where we found the 
rooms large and clean, the beds comfortable, 
and the table abundantly supplied with good 
things. In these far-away taverns, private 
tables and parlours, are neither thought of 
nor wanted. You eat at what would be 
called in Europe a Table d'Hote ; not served 
indeed with so much ceremony, but furnished 
with more substantial fare. Here you meet 
a few quiet permanent boarders, young law- 
yers or merchants of the place ; and the host 
and hostess, plain people, who bestir them- 
selves to make you as comfortable as possi- 
ble; and you can always get your meal in 
peace and plenty, unless some unhappy preju- 
dice sticks in your throat, and impedes your 
deglutition : such as, that vegetables can only 
be eaten with a silver fork ; or the horror of 
eating peas with a knife. Cockneys who are 
seized with the ambition of seeing the world, 
should leave these little matters at home. 

There are generally, besides the dining 
room, one or two apartments furnished and 



PENNSYLVANIA. 97 

used as parlours, but common to all the 
boarders, who use them as members of the 
same family. The hours of breakfast and 
dinner are six and twelve ; rather early for 
our eastern habits, but if you will go to bed 
at eight, you will find breakfast welcome at 
six next morning. 

Several coaches pass here every day, both 
east and west ; but none of them stay all 
night; so that travellers who have stopped 
here cannot be sure of a departure; we shall 
therefore retire to-night with the intention, 
though not the certainty of getting into the 
coach for Pittsburg, which will pass at three 
A. M. to-morrow. It has been raining all day, 
which has prevented us from perambulating 
the villaofe. 



LETTERS ON PENNSYLVANIA. 99 



LETTER IX. 

Departure before daylight — Summit of Laurel Hill — 
Jones's Mills — Its Beauties and Delights — Case's 
good Tavern — Sports — Western Descent of the 
Mountain — Splendid View — Mount Pleasant — Rich, 
cultivated, beautiful Country — Stewartsville — Tur- 
tle Creek — Its beautiful Scenery — Approach to 
Pittsburgh — Disappointment — Pittsburghers — Au- 
thor of Memoir of Cabot — Noise, Dust, Smoke — 
Exchange Hotel — Easy writing — Error — Point un- 
paralleled — Three Rivers — British and French am- 
bition — Two great Bridges — Allegheny Village — 
Aqueduct — Canal and Tunnel — Braddock's Field of 
Defeat — -Young Washington — Steam Crackers — 
What we shall do, whilst crossing the Portage Rail 
Road. 

Pittsburgh, August 16, 1835. 
Sure enough, at 3| a. m. yesterday, the 
coach from the east bound to Pittsburgh came 
rattling up to the door of our Hotel in Somer- 



100 LETTERS ON 

set, and we were soon waked, washed, and 
willingly wending on our westward way. It 
continued dark for an hour and an half, 
during which period we were traversing a 
part of the elevated valley between the sum- 
mits of the Allegheny and Laurel Hill, which 
may be considered as the eastern and western 
buttresses of an elevated table twenty miles 
in breadth. We now began to ascend the 
summit of Laurel Hill, which we passed at 7 
A. M. and in an hour more reached Jones's 
Mills, about one-third down the western de- 
clivity of the mountain. 

This is a most romantic and beautiful spot, 
abounding with all sorts of natural delights; 
fish, flesh, and fowl ; hunting, shooting, and 
fishing ; streams, woodSy mountains and val- 
leys; and last not least, an excellent old 
tavern kept by Mr. Case in the good old 
fashioned way, in which cleanliness and the 
comforts of the guests are looked to with the 
discerning eye of an experienced host. 

This is a pleasant resort for sportsmen, 



PENNSYLVANIA. 101 

who love to cheat the speckled trout with 
feigned fly, or hit the far off bounding deer 
with ball from rifle true. It is also a plea- 
sant place for those honest philosophers who 
do not disdain to partake of the savoury pro- 
ducts of such manly sports, when smoking on 
the genial board. 

We got an excellent breakfast at Jones's 
Mills, and a fresh set of horses, and resumed 
our journey refreshed and invigorated. For 
six or seven miles we continued to descend 
gradually the western declivity of Laurel 
Hill ; when suddenly emerging from the 
forest, the valley at the mountain's foot burst 
upon our sight. We were still high enough 
to command a splendid view of ten or twelve 
miles in extent, composed of alternate tracts 
of forest and cultivation, rising and sinking 
into hill and vale; about the middle of which, 
perched on a gentle eminence, sat Mount 
Pleasant, smiling in the summer sun. On the 
way hither, we had passed through Donegal 
and Madison, two mountain villages. 
9* 



102 LETTERS ON 

We had contemplated passing the night 
at Mount Pleasant, but as it was but one r. 
M. when we arrived, and the day was fine, the 
coach not full, the country beautiful, and 
ourselves not tired enough, we changed our 
mind, and determined to proceed twenty miles 
further to Stewartsville. 

As we proceeded, we found the country to 
improve in richness, cultivation and beauty ; 
which improvement continues to improve 
until you reach the smoky Birmingham of 
the United States. We did not find the ac- 
commodations tempting enough, nor ourselves 
tired enough to stop us at Stewartsville, and 
when we arrived at Turtle Creek, where 
Chalfant's is a good house, our proximity to 
Pittsburgh, the distance being but thirteen 
miles, drew us irresistibly forward until we 
saw reposing dim and dirty, under a murky 
mantle of smouldering smoke, 

Pittsburgium, longae finis chartseque viceque. 
The traveller should bestow several long 



PENNSYLVANIA. 103 

looks on the scenery at Turtle Creek. After 
travelling for some distance on a beautiful 
plain, the coach comes suddenly on the brink 
of an awful hill, down which you look upon 
a little plain far below, through which mean- 
ders the stream of Turtle Creek. On the 
opposite side, another abrupt and lofty hill 
rises to a level with its antagonist, from which 
you look. The Hotel in the valley, the 
creek, the meadows, the fields of grain, the 
bold and wooded hills, down which the road 
is seen to wind its wagon- worn way, form a 
scene worthy of a painter's pencil and a 
poet's pen. It should be gazed on from the 
brow of either hill, and from the banks of the 
creek, to obtain three fine landscapes of va- 
rious beauty. 

The ascent from the valley of the creek is 
along a well graded stone turnpike, and is in 
extent three quarters of a mile, tedious and 
safe. The road now begins to assume the 
appearance of an avenue leading to a city of 
some consequence, passing through several 



104 



LETTERS ON 



villages, and by a number of handsome coun- 
try seats. Before reaching Pittsburgh, the 
road runs for several miles parallel with the 
river Allegheny along its left bank, and has 
on its left side a very high ridge, which seems 
to consist almost entirely of bituminous coal. 
The openings from which the coal is obtained 
are visible on the hill side here and there at 
every altitude. The price of this mineral 
very little exceeds the cost of digging. 

The sensation on entering Pittsburgh is one 
of disappointment ; the country through which 
you have come is so beautiful, and the town 
itself so ugly. The government of the town 
seems to have been more intent on filling the 
purses, than providing for the gratification of 
the taste, or for the comfort of its inhabitants. 
As for the Pittsburghers themselves, they are 
worthy of every good thing, being enlighten- 
ed, hospitable and urbane. 

Pittsburgh has produced many eminent men 
in law, politics and divinity, and is now the 
residence of the erudite, acute and witty author 



PENNSYLVANIA. 105 

of the Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, which 
should be read by every native American. 
Its manufacturing powers and propensities 
have been so often described and lauded 
that we shall say nothing about them, except 
that they fill the people's pockets with cash, 
and their toiling town with noise, and dust, 
and smoke. 

Our coach arrived at the Exchange Hotel 
at half past seven p. m., where we took up our 
quarters and found the accommodations very 
good. We had been sixteen hours travelling 
sixty-seven miles over a hard and rough road, 
without stopping to dine, and being bruised, 
tired and hungry, were delighted to find our- 
selves in a snug parlour where we could sit 
still and eat. After sufficiently profiting by 
these facilities, our felicity was made complete 
by the enjoyment of one of the greatest bless- 
ings that can fall to the lot of tired humanity, 
a ffood nio-ht's rest in a comfortable bed. 
Pittsburgh is full of good things in the eating 
and drinking way, but it requires much inge- 
nuity to get them down your throat unsophis- 



106 LETTERS ON 

ticated with smoke and coal dust. If a sheet 
of white paper lie upon your desk for half an 
hour, you may write on it with your finger's 
end, through the thin stratum of coal-dust that 
has settled upon it during that interval. 

The Pittsburghers have committed an error 
in not rescuing from the service of Mammon, 
a triangle of thirty or forty acres at the junc- 
tion of the Allegheny and Monongahela, and 
devoting it to the purposes of recreation. It 
is an unparalleled position for a park in which 
to ride or walk or sit. Bounded on the right 
by the clear and rapid Allegheny rushing from 
New York, and on the left by the deep and 
slow Monongaliela flowing majestically from 
Virginia, having in front the beginning of the 
great Ohio, bearing on its broad bosom the 
traffic of an empire, it is a spot worthy of being 
rescued from the ceaseless din of the steam 
engine, and the lurid flames and dingy smoke 
of the coal furnace. But alas ! the sacra 
fames auri is rapidly covering this area with 
private edifices ; and in a few short years it 



PENNSYLVANIA. 107 

is probable, that the antiquary will be unable 
to discover a vestige of those celebrated mili- 
tary works, with which French and British 
ambition, in by-gone ages, had crowned this 
important and interesting point. 

There is a large bridge of timber across 
the Allegheny and another over the Monon- 
gahela ; the former of which leads to the town 
of Allegheny, a rapidly increasing village, 
situated on a beautiful plain on the western 
side of the river. About half a mile above 
the bridge the Allegheny is crossed by an 
aqueduct bringing over the canal, which 
(strange to say) comes down from the conflu- 
ence of the Kiskeminetas with the Allegheny 
on the western side of the latter river. The 
aqueduct is an enormous wooden trough with 
a roof, hanging from seven arches of timber, 
supported by six stone piers and two abut- 
ments. The canal then passes through the 
town and under Grant's-hill through a tunnel, 
and communicates by a lock with the Monon- 
gahela. 



108 LETTERS ON 

The field of battle on which the conceited 
Braddock paid with his life the penalty of ob- 
stinate rashness, is not far from Pittsburgh, 
and is interesting to Americans as the scene 
on which the youthful Washington displayed 
the germs of those exalted qualities which 
afterwards ripened into the hero, and made 
him the founder and fi\ther of a nation. 

Pittsburgh is destined to be the centre of 
an immense commerce, both in its own pro- 
ducts and those of distant countries. Its annual 
exports at present probably exceed 25,000 and 
its imports 20,000 tons. Its trade in timber 
amounts to more than six millions of feet. 
The inexhaustible supply of coal and the 
facility of obtaining iron, insure the perman- 
ent success of its manufactories. Pittsburgh 
makes steam engines and other machinery, 
and her extensive glass-works have long been 
in profitable operation. There are also ex- 
tensive paper mills moved by steam, and a 
manufactory of crackers (not explosive but 
edible,) wrought by the same power. These 



PEPTNSYLVANIA. 



109 



crackers are made of good flour and pure water, 
and are fair and enticing to the eye of hunger, 
but we do not find the flavour so agreeable to 
the palate as that of Wattson's water crackers. 
Perhaps they are kneaded by the iron hands 
of a steam engine, whereas hands of flesh are 
needed to make good crackers. 

It was our intention to have taken steam- 
boat and gone down the Ohio river to Guyan- 
dotte, and by coach to the Virginia Springs, 
but unfortunately the rivers were so low, that 
the steamboats could not run ; so after a so- 
journ of three days, we intend to leave Pitts- 
burgh for Philadelphia by the canal, that we 
may see the beauties of the Kiskeminitas and 
the wonders of the Portage Rail-way, with its 
tunnels, viaducts and inclined planes. We 
incline to be very plain in explaining the 
nature of these planes, and to prevent our 
readers from complaining of the little light 
we may shed on this subject, when we shall 
be passing over this miracle of art, we shall 
keep our eyes, ears and mouth wide open, 
10 



110 LETTERS ON 

look at every thing, listen to every thing, and 
speer questions at every body, and shall treas- 
ure up our gleanings for the edification of all 
inquiring friends. 

New Yorkers and people from down east, 
who wish to visit the Virginia Springs, can- 
not take an easier and more delightful route, 
than that through Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh, 
and thence down the Ohio lo Guyandotte ; 
whence to the White Sulphur the distance is 
one hundred and sixty miles over a good road, 
through a romantic country, and by a line of 
good stage coaches. 



PENNSYLVANIA. HI 



LETTER X. 

Night Departure— Packet Cincinnati— Lost Description 
—Aqueduct— Freeport —Another Aqueduct — Kis- 
keminitas— Conernaugh -Coal Strata-Boring for Salt 
—Prodigal Nature— Artful Man— Packet— Passen- 
gers — Scotch Americans — Kentuckians— Reading — 
Virginia Letters— Female Criticism— Hunter's Han- 
kerchief— Leechburgh — Saltsburgh — Magnificent 
Tunnel— View through it — Stone Aqueduct— Pool — 
What it is— Silent creeping through the woods- 
Johnstown, end of Western Canal-Beginning of Port- 
age Rail Road. 

Johnstown, August 20, 1835. 
We left Pittsburgh, the evening before last 
at nine o'clock, in the Canal Packet Cincin- 
nati, Captain Fitzgerald. The hour of start- 
ing is nearly as inconvenient as possible, be- 
cause the boat passes thirty miles of the River 



112 LETTERS ON 

Allegheny, which every body wishes to see, 
in the dark. This is a matter of heartfelt re- 
gret to us, because our amiable readers will 
lose the interesting description that we had 
resolved to write of that beautiful river. 

In a few minutes after she began to move, 
the Packet entered the aqueduct which car- 
ries the canal over to the western bank of the 
Allegheny, along which it runs in a north- 
eastern direction for thirty miles. At five 
o'clock yesterday morning we passed the vil- 
Jage of Freeport, which stands on the western 
bank of the Allegheny, below the mouth of 
the Kiskeminitas which falls in on the east- 
ern side of the river. A few minutes after 
we crossed the Allegheny through an aque- 
duct which carries the canal over that river 
to the northern bank of the Kiskeminitas, the 
course of which the canal now pursues in a 
south eastern direction. 

The Kiskeminitas is a large and beautiful 
stream and the scenery on its banks is very 
romantic and interesting. Including that por- 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



113 



ti'on of it which is called Conemaugh, its 
course extends more than a hundred miles. 
The sides of many of its high hills are seamed 
with bituminous coal, the thick strata of 
which are distinctly visible as you glide along ; 
and ever and anon the ear is roused by the 
pleasant tinkle of the salt-seeking auger, per- 
forating by perpetual and importunate though 
gentle blows, the rocky strata deep below the 
surface several hundred feet. 

In this region nature has been prodigal in 
supplying man with materials for the profit- 
able application of the efforts of art. Coal is 
taken from openings made in the sides of the 
hills, and slid down wooden troughs into the 
very boats that convey it to the furnace. The 
steam engines at the numerous salt works, 
keep in motion the augers that make vents 
for the salt springs, pump the water into the 
vats, and blow the fire which evaporates it, to 
precipitate the salt. 

The discipline and arrangements in the Cin- 
cinati are good, and as we had but twenty 
10* 



114 LETTERS OW 

male and six female passengers on board, all 
quiet and some of them very agreeable, we 
got through the night very well. We have 
farmers and merchants from Ohio and Ken- 
tucky, all Americans and right good ones, 
though some of them were born in Scotland. 
The Scots when transplanted soon take deep 
roof, and make first rate Yankees. 

There is also an interesting young couple 
from Kentucky, six weeks married, who 
having crowns in their purse, have come 
abroad to see the world, which is just open- 
ing upon their young optics in its most de- 
lightful aspect. They are pleased by every 
thing that is pleasing, and every body is pleas- 
ed with their sprightly wit, good humour and 
interesting naivete. The lady is a reader, 
and yesterday she took up a litUle book that 
was lying on the table, called ' Letters de- 
scriptive of the Virginia Springs,' and read 
it through to her husband almost in a breath, 
sitting the while conveniently close to him ; 
and thus she criticised, " this is not such a 



PENNSYLVANIA. 115 

wonderful author, I could write as well my- 
self;" we assented to the truth of both the 
members of her proposition, and considered 
the author as much honoured by the sincerity 
of the fair critic. 

The gentleman obliged us by describing 
the real Kentucky tie of a silk handkerchief 
for a Hunter's head on a frosty morning. 
This is a secret worth knowing, and we shall 
treasure it up for use next winter, which we 
fear will be very cold and long. May it be 
a tie of perpetual kindness ! 

Yesterday at 8 a. m. we passed Leech- 
burgh ; and at m. Saltsburgh ; and at 2 p. m. 
we passed over a beautiful stone aqueduct 
which leads the canal into the mouth of a 
large tunnel eight hundred feet long, which 
perforates the mountain and cuts ofFa circuit 
of four miles. The tunnel is cut through 
limestone rock for four hundred feet, and the 
rest is arched with solid masonry, as are also 
both the entrances. The canal and tow-path 
both pass through the tunnel, the approach to 



116 LETTERS ON 

which is most interesting. You are gliding 
over the aqueduct admiring the scenery on 
the right and left, up and down the stream ; 
on a sudden you seem to be rushing against 
the steep side of the mountain, and then to 
your great astonishment you perceive an 
enormous archway which passes through the 
mountain's base, and discovers the brilliant 
landscape beyond, set in a dark frame, com- 
posed of the massy ribs of rock dimly seen 
within the tunnel, upon which the mountain 
securely rests. 

This magnificent tunnel is sixty miles from 
Pittsburgh, and the surrounding scenery is in 
good keeping therewith. Directly after leav- 
ing the tunnel the boat enters a pool made by 
buildino^ a dam across the river, and raisino- 
the water so as to give it the appearance of a 
mountain lake. These pools, which abound 
in the inland navigation of Pennsylvania, are 
exceedingly beautiful, being one, two, or three 
miles long, and three or four hundred yards 
wide, surrounded by hills or mountains, forest- 



PENNSYLVANIA. 117 

covered, sometimes subsiding into a lovely 
cultivated vale, embosoming a rural village. 
There is scarcely a perceptible current, and 
when the air is still, the surface, mirror-like, 
presents an exact inverted picture of the 
scenery around. When the boat debouches 
from the narrow canal, she glides with more 
easy and rapid movement into the still ex- 
panse, passing through the woods and air and 
water in sweetest silence, save the lulling 
sound of the tiny ripple at her bow. Here 
it is pleasant to sit near the bow ' chewing the 
cud of sweet and bitter fancy;' and it is de- 
lightful 

taciturn sylvas inter reptare salubres, 

Curantem quicquid dignum sapiente bonoqu' est. 
Hor. Epist. 4, lib. I. 

To glide in silence through the wholesome wood, 
Conning things worthy of the wise and good. 

After ten more miles of changing scenery, 
the shades of evening closed in upon us, and 
sleep and darkness brought us at 3 a. m. to 
the basin at Johnstown ; the eastern end of 



118 LETTERS ON 

the trans-Alleghenian canal, and the western 
beginning of the Portage Rail Road. 

Here silent and motionless we remained 
wrapt in the arms of Morpheus until 5 a. m., 
when the tramping of feet and the dragging 
of trunks over our heads, admonished us that 
we must leave the packet for the Mountain 
Rail Road. Our baggage was quickly placed 
upon the cars, and ourselves were led up to 
M'Connell's Hotel, a short distance from the 
basin, to break our morning fast. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 119 



LETTER XL 

First level — Agreeable apprehension — Eighth wonder 
— Rising in the world, by steam and by rope — Height 
from Johnstown — Descent to Hallidaysburg — Plane 
No. 1. — Level No. 2. — Tunnel— Superb Viaduct — 
Four other Planes and levels — Top of the Mountain 
— Thoughts on do. — Summit Level — Mountain Top 
Tavern — Climate like Spring — Ascending apprehen- 
sion succeeded by descending fear — Descending 
Planes longer and steeper — Ropes thicker — Travel 
without steam or horses — Extracts from Mr. Welch's 
Report containing descriptions of the Machinery, Via- 
ducts, Culverts, and all the elements of the Inclined 
Planes and Rail Road. 

Packet Juniata, near Lewistown, Aug. 21, 1835. 

Yesterday at Johnstown we soon despatch- 
ed the ceremony of a good breakfast, and at 
6 A. M. were in motion on the first level, as it 
is called, of four miles in length, leading to 
the foot of the first inclined plane. The level 



120 LETTERS ON 

has an ascent of one hundred and one feet, 
and we passed over it in horse-drawn cars 
with the speed of six miles an hour. This is 
a very interesting part of the route, not only 
on account of the wildness and beauty of the 
scenery, but also of the excitement mingled 
with vague apprehension, which takes pos- 
session of every body in approaching the great 
wonder of the internal improvements of Penn- 
sylvania. In six hours the cars and passen- 
gers were to be raised eleven hundred and 
seventy-two feet of perpendicular height, and 
to be lowered fourteen hundred feet of perpen- 
dicular descent, by complicated, powerful and 
frangible machinery, and were to pass a 
mountain, to overcome which, with a similar 
weight, three years ago, would have required 
the space of three days. The idea of raising 
so rapidly in the world, particularly by steam 
or a rope, is very agitating to the simple 
minds of those who have always walked in 
humble paths. 

As soon as we arrived at the foot of plane 



PENNSYLVANIA. 121 

No. 1, the horses were unhitched and the cars 
were fastened to the rope, which passes up 
the middle of one track and down the middle 
of the other. The stationary steam engine 
at the head of the plane was started and the 
cars moved majestically up the steep and long 
acclivity in the space of four minutes ; the 
length of the plane being sixteen hundred and 
eight feet, its perpendicular height, one hun- 
dred and fifty, and its angle of inclination 
5° 42' 38". 

The cars were now attached to horses and 
drawn through a magnificent tunnel nine hun- 
dred feet long, having two tracks through it, 
and being cut through solid rock nearly the 
whole distance. Now the train of cars were 
attached to a steam tug to pass a level of four- 
teen miles in length. This lengthy level is 
one of the most interesting portions of the 
Portage Rail Road, from the beauty of its 
location and the ingenuity of its construction. 
It ascends almost imperceptibly through its 
whole course, overcoming a perpendicular 
11 



122 LETTERS ON 

height of one hundred and ninety Ciiet, and 
passes through some of the wildest scenery in 
the state; the axe, the chisel and the spade 
having cut its way through forest, rock and 
mountain. The valley of the little Conemaugh 
river is passed on a viaduct of the most beau- 
tiful construction. It is of one arch, a perfect 
semicircle with a diameter of eighty feet, 
built of cut stone, and its entire height from 
the foundation is seventy-eight feet six inches. 
When viewed from the bottom of the valley, 
it seems to span the heavens, and you might 
suppose a rainbow had been turned to stone. 

The fourteen miles of this second level are 
passed in one hour, and the train arrives at 
the foot of the second plane, which has seven- 
teen hundred and sixty feet of length, and one 
hundred and thirty-two feet of perpendicular 
height. The third level has a length of a 
mile and five-eighths, arise of fourteen feet 
six inches, and is passed by means of horses. 
The third plane has a length of fourteen hun- 
dred and eighty feet, and a perpendicular 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



123 



heio-ht of one hundred and thirty. The fourth 
level is two miles long, rises nineteen feet and 
is passed by means of horses. The fourth 
plane has a length of two thousand one hun- 
dred and ninety-six feet, and a perpendicular 
height of one hundred and eighty-eight. The 
fifth- level is three miles long, rises twenty- 
six feet and is passed by means of horses. 
The fifth plane has a length of two thousand 
six hundred and twenty-nine feet, and a per- 
pendicular height of two hundred and two, and 
brings you to the top of the mountain, two 
thousand three hundred and ninety seven feet 
above the level of the ocean, thirteen hundred 
and ninety-nine feet above Hallidaysburg, 
and eleven hundred and seventy-two feet above 
Johnstown. At this elevation in the midst of 
summer, you breathe an air like that of spring, 
clear and cool. Three short hours have 
brought you from the torrid plain, to a re- 
freshing and invigorating climate. The as- 
cending apprehension has left you, but it is 
succeeded by the fear of the steep descent 



124 LETTERS ON 

which lies before you ; and as the car rolls 
along on this giddy height, the thought trem- 
bles in your mind, that it may slip over the 
head of the first descending plane, rush down 
the frightful steep, and be dashed into a thous- 
and pieces at its foot. 

The length of the road on the summit of 
the mountain is one mile and five-eighths, and 
about the middle of it stands a spacious and 
handsome stone tavern. The eastern quarter 
of a mile, which is the highest part, is a dead 
level ; in the other part, there is an ascent of 
nineteen feet. The descent on the eastern 
side of the mountain is much more fearful 
than the ascent on the western, for the planes 
are much longer and steeper, of which you 
are made aware by the increased thickness of 
the ropes ; and you look doiim instead of up. 

There are also five planes on the eastern 
side of the mountain, and five slightly descend- 
ing levels, the last of which is nearly four 
miles long and leads to the basin at Hallidays- 
burg; this is travelled by the cars without 



PENNSYLVANIA. 125 

Steam or horse, merely by the force of gravity. 
In descending the mountain you meet several 
fine prospects and arrive at Hallidaysburg 
between twelve and one o'clock. All the ele- 
ments of the Portage Rail Road and descrip- 
tions of the machinery, will be found in the 
extracts added to this letter, which we have 
taken from a very interesting and able report 
made by Sylvester Welch, Esq., Engineer 
of the Allegheny Portage Rail Road, to the 
Canal Commissioners of Pennsylvania, on the 
1st of November, 1832. 

Extracts from Mr. Welch's Report, 

" The viaduct over the little Conemaugh at 
the Horse Shoe Bend, has a semicircular arch 
of eighty feet. 

" The height of the abutment walls from the 
foundation to the springing line of the arch, 
is twenty-nine feet ; do. from low water twenty 
feet. 

" The rise of the arch is forty feet. 

" The distance from the top of the arch to 
the top of the parapet is nine feet and a half. 



^^^ lETTEES ON 

" The whole height of the walls above the 
foundation is seventy-eight and a half feet. 

*' Ditto, above the surface of low water is 
sixty-nine and a half feet. 

*'The masonry is of the most substantial 
kind. The stones that form the faces of the 
walls contain from 12 to 25 cubic feet each; 
the beds are well cut and fitted together. 
" Width at top of parapet, 28 feet. 
" Ditto, at foundation, 40 do. 
" Cost about $52,000. 
" The viaduct over the Ebensburg Branch 
of the Conemaugh, one arch ,• span 40 feet ; rise 
of arch 10 feet; height of walls from founda- 
tion to top of parapet 31 and a half feet ; ditto, 
from low water 27 feet ; width at top of par- 
apets 25 feet 10 inches. Cost about $8600. 

" The viaduct over the mountain branch of 
the Conemaugh— one arch ; span 40 feet ; rise 
of arch 10 feet; height from foundation to top 
of parapet 23 and a half feet ; ditto, from sur- 
face of low water 17 feet ; width at top 25 
feet 10 inches. Cost about #6500 



PENNSYLVANIA. 127 

" The viaduct over the Beaver Dam Branch 
of the Juniata, — Two oblique arches each of 
40 feet 3 and a half inches, span measured on 
the skew face, and 33 feet measured at right 
angles to the axis of the vault ; rise of arches 
10 and a half feet ; height from foundation to 
top of parapet 20 feet. Cost about $10,000. 
«' Culverts, — There are 68 Culverts ; the 
spans vary from 5 to 20 feet ; they are built 
of stone laid in lime mortar ; the faces of the 
walls at the ends are built of hammered stone 
laid in courses ; the coping and steps, and the 
voussoirs that form the heads of the arches 
are smoothly cut. 

i' Drains. — There are 80 drains of from 2 
to 3 feet span ; the walls are laid without mor- 
tar. 

" The viaducts, culverts and drains make 
together one hundred and fifty-seven passages 
for water under the Rail Road. 



128 



LETTERS ON 






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PENNSYLVANIA. 



129 



No. 2. TABLE OF GRADES. 

» This table exhibits the profile or grade of the Portage 
Rail Road. The 1st column shows the ascent from 
Johnstown to the summit of the mountain, and descent 
from the same to Hallidaysburg, per mile in feet ; the 
2nd column shows the length of each grade in miles ; 
the 3rd column shows ihe distance in miles from the 
lower end of the basin at Johnstown ; and the 4th 
column shows the total ascent from the basin at Johns- 
town to the summit of the mountain, and the total de. 
scent from the summit to the basin at Hallidaysburgh. 



1 


Length 


Distance 


Ascent 




Ascent 


n Miles 


from 


from 




per 


of each 


Johns- 


Johns- 




Mile. 


grade. 


town. 


town. 







0.19 


0.19 







26.400 


2.44 


2.63 


64.50 




25.344 


1.46 


4.09 


101.46 







0.04 


4.13 


101.46 Level. 




0.30 


4.43 


251.46 Inclined Plane No. 1. 





0.02 


4.45 


251.46 


Level. - 


10.560 


3.31 


7.76 


286.46 




21.120 


3.66 


11.42 


363.66 




7.920 


1.40 


12.82 


374.76 




14.784 


4.19 


17.01 


436.64 




10.560 


0.42 


17.43 


441.04 







0.06 


17.49 


441.04 


Level. 




0.33 


17.82 


573.44 


Inclined Plane No. 2. 





0.06 


17.88 


573.44 


Level. 


10.560 


1.37 


19.25 


587.94 







0.06 


19.31 


587.94 


Level." 




0.28 
0.06 


19.59 


718.44 


Inclined Plane No. 3. 





19.65 


718.44 


Level. 


10.560 


1.78 


21.43 


737.24 





130 



LETTERS ON 



Ascent 

per 

mile. 



Length 
in mile; 
of each 

grade. 








10.560 




14.784 




Descent 

per 

mile. 



0.06 
0.42 
0.06 
2.44 
O.OG 
0.49 
0.06 
1.29 
0.27 



Distance 
from 
Johns- 
town. 



21.49 
21.91 
21.97 
24.41 
24.47 
24.96 
25.02 
26.31 
26.58 



Ascent 
from 
Johns- 
town. 



0.51 


27.09 


0.15 


27.24 


0.51 


27.75 


0.06 


27.81 


0.51 


28.32 


0.06 


28.38 


0.58 


28.96 


006 


29.02 


1.13 


30.15 


0.06 


30.21 


051 


30.72 


0.06 


30.78 


1.64 


32.42 


0.06 


32.48 


0.43 


32.91 


0.06 


32.97 


1.80 


34.77 


1.25 


36.02 


0.09 


36.11 


0.25 


36.36 


0.29 


36.65 



737.24 

925.10 

925.10 

950.90 

950.90 

1152.54 

1152.54 

11 71. .58 

1171.58 



Descent 

from 

Summit. 



Level. 

Inclined Plane No. 4. 

Level. 

Level. 

Inclined Plane, No. 5. 

Level. 

Summit Level. 



266.50 

266.50 

527.00 

527.00 

532.4 

532.40 

840.40 

840.40 

852.40 

852.40 
1041.90 
1041.90 
1071.48 
1071.48 
1252.00 
1252.00 
1346.00 
1390.22 
1390.22 
1398.71 
1398.71 Level. 



Inclined Plane No. 6. 

Level. 

Inclined Plane No. 7. 

Level. 



Level. 

Inclined Plane No. 8. 

Level. 

Level. 

Inclined Plane No. 9. 

Level. 

Level. 

Inclined Plane No. 10. 

Level. 



Level. 



Whole ascent and descent 2570.30 feet. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



131 



No. 3. TABLE OF INCLINED PLANES. 



No. 



Horizontal 

length in 

feet. 

1600.50 
1755.32 
1473.70 
2187.74 

2620.82 
2700.52 
2641.98 
3101.49 
2714.05 
2288.46 



Length 
measured 
on plane. 

1607.74 
1760.43 
1480.25 
2195.94 
2628.60 
2713.85 
^26.55.01 
3116.92 
2720.80 
2295.61 



Total 

rise 

n feet. 



150.00 
132.40 
130.50 

187.86 
201.64 
266.50 
260.50 
307.60 
189. .50 
180.52 



Rise per 
100 feet. 



Angle 
inclination. 



10. 

8. 
9.50 



5° 42' 38" 
40 34' 26" 
5° 25' 36" 



9. 


50 8' 


34" 


8. 


4° 34' 


26" 


10.25 


5° 51' 


9" 


10.25 


5° 51' 


9" 


10.25 


5° 51' 


9" 


7.25 


4° 8' 


48" 


8.25 


1 40 42' 


58" 



"The table of the inclined planes, shows the 
inclination, the length measured horizontally, 
the length measured on the planes, the ascent 
or descent per 100 feet base, and the hei^^ht 
or difference of level between the head and foot 
of each inclined plane. 

« The inclined planes are regular in descent, 
from the top to a point 200 feet from the foot, 
and terminate in a circular arc, to which the 
plane and level are tangents. The descent in 
100 feet is shown in the table. The descent 
in the last 200 feet, is the same as in 100 feet 



^^2 LETriiRS ON 

above. The inclined planes are all straight 

in plan. 

" The entire cost of the Portage 
Rail Road with single track, ma- 
chinery and single stationary en- 
gines at the inclined planes is 

^^^"^ • • . . $1,155,000 

The cost of laying a second track 

^'^^^"' • . . . 295.000 

The cost of another set of station- 
ary engines is about . . 25.000 

^1.475.000 

''Description of the Machinery. —First Set 
ofEngines.—The system of machinery adopt- 
ed at the inclined planes of the Portage Rail- 
way, is different in many of its features from 
the plans heretofore adopted in Europe and 
this country. 

"The trade on this road will preponderate in 
different directions at different seasons of the 
year; and in consequence it was deemed 



PENNSYLVANIA. 133 

necessary to place steam engines at all the 
planes, and also to arrange the machinery so 
that they may be self acting if necessary. 

" Two vertical sheaves* of cast iron 8| feet 
in diameter, and turned in the grooves so as 
to be exactly similar to each other in form 
and dimensions, are placed, one in the centre 
of each Railway-track, about 100 feet from 
the head of the plane ; the tops of them ex- 
tending six inches above the rails. The shafts 
on which these sheaves are placed, are geered 
together by equal spur wheels 4 feet in diam- 
eter, so as to revolve in opposite directions. 
In the planef passing through the bottom of 
these sheaves, and in a pit between them 
and the head of the {inclined) plane, a hori- 
zontal sheave, (the diameter of which is equal 
to the distance between the centres of the 
tracks,) is placed, the groove of which is also 
turned smooth. This last is fitted into a strong 
frame, which may be moved for a distance of 

*Whcels. timaginary. 

12 



134 LETTEBS ON 

15 feet towards the head of the plane, by 
means of a weight attached to a chain, and 
hanging in a well. There is another horizon- 
tal sheave 40 feet from the foot of the plane, 
on the level, which is also fitted into a strong 
frame moveable 50 feet, by means of a double 
pully block, rope and windlass. 

" The rope is endless, and is supported by 
(cast iron ?) sheaves 18 inches {in) diameter, 
with hardened steel axles, placed 24 feet apart. 
It passes around the horizontal sheave at the 
foot of the plane, up the centre of one track 
until it meets the vertical sheave above the 
head, {of the plane), passes half round it, and 
returning towards the head of the plane, meets 
the horizontal sheave, passes half round it, re- 
turns to the second vertical sheave, passes 
half round it, and down the other track of the 
railway. 

" The moveable sheave of the head, has the 
effect of drawing the rope tightly into the 
grooves of the working sheaves, obviating the 
danger of slipping, and equalizing the strain j 



PENNSYLVANIA. 135 

that at the foot will permit the slackness of 
the rope to be taken up as it stretches by use, 
without the necessity of cutting and splicing 
it. 

" The steam engine which drives the above 
machinery is coupled to the shaft of one of 
the vertical sheaves. It is a double cylinder, 
high pressure, slide valve, horizontal engine, 
without a fly wheel, and drives the working 
shaft directly without the intervention of geer- 
ing. At 6 of the planes, the engines are of 35 
horse power, and at the remaining 4, of 30 
horse power. When the number of strokes of 
the engine is 14 per minute, the velocity of the 
rope is about 4 miles an hour. The form of 
the engine, although somewhat more expen- 
sive than the common one, is recommended 
by its greater safety. Being under more per- 
fect command than a single cylinder engine 
with a fly-wheel, it may be started, or in case 
of accident be stopped, with great facility. 
When the descending load exceeds the as- 
cending, the hydraulic regulator is thrown 



^^^ LETTERS ON 



into geer. This is a horizontal cylinder filled 
with water, 14 inches {in) diameter, made of 
cast iron, and having a piston, piston rod, 
slides, pitman, &c. similar to a steam engine 
cylmder. It has a side pipe connecting the 
ends, in which is placed a valve, worked by an 
elevating screw similar to that of a common 
throttle valve. A spur wheel geering with one 
on the shaft of one of the vertical sheaves, 
works a pitman, which drives the piston back- 
wards and forwards through the cylinder. At 
each half stroke of the piston, the whole of the 
water in the cylinder is forced through the 
orifice formed by the valve in the side pipe, 
and as this may be regulated by hand, any de-' 
gree of retardation required, maybe obtain- 



ed. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



137 



LETTER XII. 

Absorption of the senses— Relief by writing— Charms of 
the Valley of the Juniata— Gregory Nazianzen— 
Evening— Night — FJuntingdon— Lewistovvn— Itsen- 
virons— Leave the Juniata— Cross the Susquehanna — 
Harrisburg— Leave the Packet— Wilson's excellent 
Hotel — Antithesis — Glorious sleep — Breakfast — 
Capitol — John Hancock's Chair — Journey to Lancas- 
ter by Stage Coach— Sweet Arrow— Conclusion- 
End — Contents. 

Lancaster, August 22, 1835. 
The sense-absorbing power of the Mountain 
Rail Road entirely deprived us of eyes and 
ears for external objects for a time, and there- 
fore we wrote our last letter in the packet 
Juniata, describing the great things that were 
in our mind's eye. Being thus unburthened, 
our corporeal senses again resumed their 
power and informed us that we were in the 
12* 



^^^ LETTERS ON 

lovely valley of the romantic Juniata; now 
toiling (that is the horses,) along the narrow 
canal round the base of a noble mountain, now 
passing a busy village, and now shooting with 
increased velocity and noiseless motion along 
the mirrored surface of a lake-like pool, 
bounded on one side by gently undulating cul- 
tivated fields, and on the other by a beautiful 
and extensive wood, inviting as that which 
was pressed by the footsteps of the eloquent 
and pious Gregorius Nazianzenus, the day 
before he wrote the following lines : 

" In nemus umhriferum, confectus corda dolore, 

Solus ego hesteraa bee profectus eram : 
Namque mens luctus laevat ha^c medicina, dolorque, 

Cum taciius mccum coUoquor ipse, cadit. 
Aura susurrabat tenuis, volucresque canoree 

Fundebant avidogutture mille sonos. 
Quinetiam cantu circum nemus omne sonabat, 

Quern rauca viridi fronde cicada dabat." 

Greg. Naz. Carmen XIII. 

The shades of evening closed upon us be- 
fore we reached Huntingdon, which we pass- 



PENNSYLVANIA. 139 

ed in the dark. Yesterday we passed Waynes- 
burg, Lewistown, Mifflin and Mexico. The 
western approach to Lewistown is remarka- 
bly interesting; the landscape possessing 
every beautiful natural feature that can be 
furnished by the various combinations of 
mountain, valley, river, hill and wood, both 
wild and cultivated^ 

At ten last night we passed Duncan's Island 
and leaving the valley of the Juniata, we glided 
into the broad bosom of the noble Susquehan- 
na, and entering the canal on its eastern side, 
we arrived at Harrisburg at three o'clock this 
morning. Here we took leave of our agree- 
able Kentucky fellow travellers with mu(ih 
regret, and were soon conveyed by an omni- 
bus to Wilson's excellent hotel. 

The sudden transition from the hot and 
steamy cabin, to the airy, spacious, comfort- 
able and well furnished chamber of the hotel, 
was like a translation from the black hole of 
Calcutta to the gardens of Semiramis ; and 
inspired us with the unshakeable resolution to 



1^^ LETTERS ON 

take our fill of quiet sleep in the motionless 
and tempting bed that stood before us. The 
execution of this plan occupied us, mind and 
body, until eleven this morning, at which 
rational hour we rose and solaced our inward 
man with a capital breakfast. 

At M. we sallied forth to spy out the 
beauties of the town; and first we found our 
way to the brick-built capitol, which stands on 
a gentle eminence not far from Wilson's, and 
commands a fine view of the Susquehanna and 
the surrounding country. 

The Chambers of the Senate and House of 
Representatives are large, light, and well ar- 
ranged to accommodate the collected wisdom 
of the state. The Speaker of the lower house 
occupies the chair that John Hancock sat in, 
when the Declaration of Independence was 
signed in Philadelphia. 

At three p. m. we entered a stage coach 
bound to Lancaster. There were nine grown 
persons and one child inside, and three grown 
persons outside. Fortunately the road is good 



PENNSYLVANIA. 141 

turnpike, and the country is beautiful and well 
cultivated. At nine miles distance from Har- 
risburg, near the mouth of the little river 
Suetara, (called by the natives Sweet Arrow,) 
stands the village of Middletovvn, where the 
Union Canal comes to its western termina- 
tion. We arrived at Lancaster in safety at 
nine p. M. and stopped at Mrs. Hubley's, our 
former comfortable quarters, for the night. 

Now we have described our entire jaunt, and 
in doing it we have had in our eye St. Gregory 
Nazianzen's definition of a good painter, and 
have endeavoured, though without success, 
to fulfil its conditions : 

Optimus est pictor, veras vivumque tuentes 
Qui scite formas exprimit in tabulis : 

Non qui multiplices frustra variosque colores 
Miscens, ante oculos florida prata locat' 

Greg. Naz. Carm. X. 

And now patient and discerning readers, 
we mean the faithful few who have kept us 



142 LETTERS ON PENNSYLVANIA. 

company hitherto, we thank you for your good 
company, and convey to you our last wishes, 
in the last line of Plautus's Stichus : 

• Vos' O Icctores, ♦ plaudite, atque ite ad vos comissa- 
turn.' 



THE END. 



CONTENTS 



->»«#«««— 



LETTER I. 



TheCityof Penn— Good Things— Effort to^<^epart— 
Streets too clean— Rivers, Delaware and Schuylkill 
—Perpetual Newness— What the Houses are like- 
Smooth I'rottoirs-Rough Carriage Ways-Water 
—Iron Pipes— Fire Companies- State House dcH— 
Clock— Man in the Clock— Mode of Alarm— Decla- 
ration of Independence-Stumpy Steeple— ClevcT In- 
vention-American Philosophical Society— Wistar 
Parties— Cultivation of Science and the Arts ot t-^at- 
inff and Drinking— Markets— Butter-Cream Cheese 
— University — Hospital — Museum — Environs — 
Monstrous Almshouse— Inhabitants -Hotels— Annu- 
itants' Paradise— Climate— Winter, Spring, Summer 
Fall and Indian Summer— Population. 17 

LETTER II. 

Breakfast— Nauseous Mixture— Captain Hamilton— 
Omnibus- Too punctual— Cruise about the City- 
Dutch Baker Boy-Depot- Confusion— Passengers 
and Trunks— Unilocular Car— Inclination of Noses 
-Sexes and Sizes-Red Cloak-Red Nose-Sparks 
—Danger of Combustion— Englishman— Drawn by 



^44 COJNTENTS. 



Horses four miles— Switcbmasfer's mistake— Schuvl- 
kill Viaduct-Inclined Plane— Scenery— River— 
island— Endless Rope— Ascension of the Plane- 
Cars like a String- of Beads-Steam Tu^-Departure 
-Country-Mills, Houses, Barns, Bridges, Roads, of 
fctone— Pestuent triangular cinders— Conduct of the 
PassengcTs— How the Infant demeaned himself— 
King- of Rome— Materials, Cost and Faults of Rail 
Road— Length of Road and Time— Viaductine Man- 
traps-Engineer's Ingenuity— Collision of Car— Low 
hoofs— Jointed Chimneys— Sinoky Ordeal- Remedy 
—Lancaster-Old appearance— Central Square- 
Court House-Good Holel-Slcep repelling newer of 
Cinders— Population. ^ 6 ^ ^^ 

LETTER III. 

The last of the cinders- Leave Lancaster— Columbia- 
New Bridge— Former Bridge washed a way— Views- 
End of Rail Road— Tolls— Profit to the Stale-Em- 
bnrk in a Canal Packet— Scenery near Marietta— 
What a Canal Packet is— Manner of getting on there- 
m—lMghtarrangement— Bar— Kitchen— Cook— Re- 

creations— Bridges— Possible abridgment— Speed 

Ihrec Tctrapods— One Dipod-Rope, how fastened 
and let loose— Harrisburgh— How the Sun set- La- 
mentation— What kind of Line there should be— 
Duncan's Island— Scenery thereabout— Bridge- 
Mode of crossing the River-The River Juniata— 
Land on the Island— Capital House— The Island— 
banks'^"^ "'^^ """"""^ it— The Rivers and their opposite 

45 

LETTER IV. 

Good Sleep— Leave the Island— Packet Delaware, Cap. 
tarn Williams— Aqueduct-Scenery of the Juniata— 



CONTENTS. 



145 



Millerstown, Mexico, Mifflin, Lewistown— Beer- 
Captains, like Doctors, differ— Good arrangement— 
The Captain's savoir faire — Possible comfort, its di- 
mensions— Waynesburg, Hamiltonville, Huntingdon, 
Petersburg, Alexandria, Williamsburg— Rain--Arri- 
val at Hallidaysburg— Basin— End of Canal— HalU- 
daysburg after a week's rain— Wooden walk— Muddy 
intersections— Moore's Hotel— Good Table— Where 
a Hotel should be built— Youth of Town— Rapid 
growth— Site— Beginning of Rail Road— Little 
Chamber— Great cleanliness— Double bed, &c. 57 

LETTER V. 

Breakfast— Departure — Distance— Direction— Roads 
very bad, much worse, fourth degree of comparison— - 
Weather— St. Clair, alias Buckstown- Peregrmi 
Amicus— Company— Dinner Party— Apicius, Qum 
—Dinner and its variety— Synchronism— Father-in- 
law— Landlord— Load of Logs— Sir Toby Belch and 
Sir Andrew Aguecheek— Road to Bedford— To 
Springs — Approach to Springs— Lovely Valley, 
stream, forest, hills, lake, island, bridges, mill, 
delight, surprise— Federal Hill— Buildmgs— Draw- 
ino- and Dining Room— People in them— Bubbles— 
Chambers— Piazzas— Kitchen-Billiards— Garden- 
Basin with Statue and Fountain— Constitution HilJ— 
Baths— Walk— Pavilion— Idleness— Penknife ambi- 
tion. ^^ 

LETTER VL 

Fine weather— Too short days-Bell at 7 a.m.— Rising 
and Drinking— Breakfast Bell-Fair, to eat— Fare, 
to be eaten— Abundance, of Food, Time, Place and 
Circumstance— Virginia Letters- Doings after break- 
fast— Read or Sew; Sleep or so— Masculine and 
Feminine Amusements— Fishers of Men— Dinner— 
13 



146 CONTENTS. 

Mutton, Wales— Venison, Blenheim Park— Cheap 
Deer, plentiful and parudoxicul— Hominy— How to 
prepare it — How to eat it— Unhappy people— After- 
noon-Occupation and Idleness— Supper— The Hour 
after- Music and preparation for Dancing— Family 
of Musicians— Epaminondas ; his music and dancing 
—Sunday— Church sometimes hi Dining Room. 77 

LETTER VII. 

Weather— Temperature— Nights fit for snoozing— 
Warm and Bright days— Height of the Valley's bot- 
tom—Rationale of Climate— Anderson's Spring- 
Position— Temperature— Taste— Smell— Flat— Clear 
—No Sediment— Doctor Church's valuable Analysis 
— Contents of Water, solid and gaseous — Fletcher's 
Spring— Differences— Powers of the Water— Diseases 
to be cured— Travelling Water -Price— Allowance 
for a Toper— Brandy, Love and Jealousy— Wine and 

Water Poets — Limestone Water — Its volume 

Lower Level— Sulphur Spring— Its Contents— Sweet 
Springs — Coolness and Purity. 85 

LETTER VIII. 

Departure from the Springs— Mail Coach— Exercise— 
Views— Ascent of the Allegheny— Parting of the 
Waters — Atlantic, Mississippi — Look behind— Moun- 
tain Top — Level Country — Farms — Grass, Oats, 
Buckwheat— Descent— Laurel flill— Elevated Valley 

— Its breaJth— Somerset — Its Climate — McAdam 

Blacksmiths and Wheelwrights— Golden Swan Ta- 
vern— Customs— Table d' Hote — Boarders— Host 

and Hostess — Peace and Plenty — Silver Forks 

Hours of Meals— Early Breakfast welcome— Good 
Intention — Rain. 93 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER IX 



147 



Departure before daylight— Summit of Laurel Hill- 
Jones's Mills— Its Beauties and Delights— Case s 
good T^avern— Sports— Western Descent of the 
Mountain— Splendid View — Mount Pleasant— Rich, 
cultivated, beautiful Country— Stewartsville-Tur- 
tie Creek— Its beautiful Scenery— Approach to 
Pittsburgh — Disappointment — Pittsburghcrs — Au- 
thor of Memoir of Cabot— Noise, Dust, Smoke— 
Exchanffe Hotel— Easy writing— Error— Point un- 
paralleled— Three Rivers— British and French am- 
bition—Two great Bridges— Allegheny Village- 
Aqueduct— Canal and Tunnel— Braddock's Field ot 
Defeat— Young Washington — Steam Crackers-— 
What we shall do, whilst crossing the Portage Rail 
Road. 99 

LETTER X. 

Night Departure— Packet Cincinnati— Lost Descrip- 
tion— Aqueduct— Freeport — Another Aqueduct — 
Kiskeminitas— Conemaugh— Coal Strata— Boring for 
Salt— Prodigal Nature— Artful Man— Packet— Pas- 
sengers— Scotch A mericans— Kentuckians — Reading 

Virginia Letters — Female Criticism — Hunter's 

Handkerehief— Leechburgh— Saltsburgh — Magnifi- 
cent Tunnel— View through it— Stone Aqueduct— 
Pool— What it is— Silent creeping through the woods 
—Johnstown, end of Western Canal— Beginning of 
Portage Rail Road. 1^^ 

LETTER XL 

First Level — Agreeable apprehension — Eighth won- 
der— Rising in the World, by steam and by rope— 



148 



CONTENTS. ~^^ 



Height from Johnstown-Descent from Hallidavs. 
burg-PJane No l._Level No. 2. Tunnel-Supe^rb 
Viaduct-Four other Planes and Levels-Top of the 

tarn Top Tavern-Clin)ate like Spring-Ascending 
WnirT '"'''l^''^ ""y descending ffar-Desc3 
ii)g planes longer and steeper-Ropes thicker-Travel 
without Steam or Horses-Extracts from Mr. Welch's 
Keport containing descriptions of the Machinery. 

sir^nd^R^s^^^^^^^^^ 

LETTER XII. 

"^ oTtTe' Vell^^'r^r^'r^^"^^ ^y Writing-Charms 
ot the Valley of the Juniata-Gregory Nazianzen- 

EnvZ^~^'^^' -u «r^^"?don - Lewistown - Its 
naH.Jh '''''?' Juniata-Cross the Susquehan- 
cel^n^H 1"'?""^^'^ '^^ Packet-Wilson's ex- 
-Sit"l rK'^"A'''''''r^^°"°"^«'^^P--^'-«akfast 
-Cdpitol-John Hancock's Chair-Journey to Lan- 
S-&f°-^-«--^— ^-elusion- 



ERRATA. 

Page 41, in the last line of the French quotation for 
oonche, read bouche, twice. 
" 62, in sixth line from the bottom, for from read to, 
69, in tlie last line, for sequested, read sequestered. 

90, in the Latin quotation, for scribunter, read 
scribuntur. 



.'^ 














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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




